


Sine Qua Non

by mr-finch (soubriquet)



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Alcohol, Blowjobs, Frottage, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 09:15:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/pseuds/mr-finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I've been screwing Jesse Pinkman for three weeks now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. before you hear, do not judge

**Author's Note:**

> This is a terrible little au where Jesse starts using Saul as a conduit for fucking Walt, and Saul gets wound up into knots over it.
> 
> I'm sorry.

I've been screwing Jesse Pinkman for three weeks now.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Ol' Saul Goodman's finally lost it, gone off the deep end - run amok. It doesn't matter what you think. That's what happened to me, and it's the shortest explanation I have. 

Well. I could elaborate a little.

He came to me, first of all, is what you have to understand. The kid had been acting weird all week - I got no explanation, from either him  _or_  Walt.

Yeah, I gave the big boss a call. Asked if he'd poisoned another child or stolen some of Jesse's money or whatnot; given him a reason to pout like his grandma just died around me. Walt had nothing. He gave me the proverbial finger and hung up - real classy guy.

So I was left with Mister Doe-Eyes taking up space in my waiting room and jerking me around. I tell you, between the two of them, they make the biggest headcase in all of New Mexico. Maybe America. The kid? No exception.

He comes into my office this one time, same expression, like he knows he's taking up my time and wants to get something off his chest but can't, and after we talk for ten or so minutes - about... fuck if I know, money? - he wanders over like he's finally figured it out, puts his hand on my chest and kisses me.

Yeah. Me. Jesse Pinkman, drug dealer/murderer for one of the biggest assholes on the planet, kissing me, his criminal attorney. The shit that happens to me, you wouldn't believe.

So I of course, in my ineffable wisdom, back away and hit the desk. Some combination of "woah" or "wait" comes out of my mouth, but the kid's persistent and he seriously wants to give me a kiss, and well - I'm not heartless, who am I to say no? Plus, I have Gloria lined up for an appointment to "pay her fees" in half an hour and routine gets pretty pushy when you're edging closer to early retirement.

I kiss him back. What of it? He seems to like it.

That was my first mistake. See, having a little give and take with the client is nothing new to me. Some people don't have the money, some give a really great blowjob, that's the grandeur of the criminal underworld, sorry to say. The one thing you don't do under any circumstances is get involved with a client. This was the second I started breaking that rule.

See, to the Saul of that moment, Jesse Pinkman was just another client, one that I'd seen many times before. I deal with a lot of junkies and I think I spent more time wishing I'd never seen him or his partner come into my firm than I ever praised him. Don't think I'd ever said a good truthful word to his face, before then.

When he pulled back, with his face coloured pink and his lip looking the same way it had with that sucker punch the other week, I lost it. Something in the impregnable Saul train broke and derailed. In other words, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I was fucked.


	2. it is not my deed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> non est factum  
> A method whereby a signatory to a contract can invalidate it by showing that his signature to the contract was made unintentionally or without full understanding of the implications.

He never said anything nice to me, if you're wondering. Used to come in my office, slap whatever bag of cash he had with him this time down on the floor and put his feet up on my coffee table. The kid doesn't even  _drink_  coffee - like an animal.

And in these meetings I'd berate him for the thousandth or ten thousandth time, because he fucked up another one of Walter's plans, or he failed to answer my phone calls yet again. Of course, in the end they always came from Walt. I'm just the middle guy.

Little did I know that at that moment, I was about to get a whole lot closer to the middle than before. That this one time, _I_  would be the focus.

-

"Saul," Pinkman says, with his eyes bluer than an Albuquerque day and his lips wet from my mouth. "You got any plans for tonight?"

I thought I did. For a moment, I really thought I had  _something_  planned - hopefully the kind that would earn me a lot of money - but the brain is fickle and whatever in god's name was on my schedule, it was gonna have to wait until tomorrow.

"Sure," I squeeze out. "I mean, I'm free." What are you saying, Saul? Think with your  _head._

"Great," Pinkman says, and pats one hand heavily on my shoulder. He's smiling and I know I'm losing it if that's what I'm looking for. "I'll swing by when you close up. Alright?"

My hands are gripping the rim of the desk behind me, almost gently, like I'm not sure whether this is a total meltdown situation or some sort of feasible operation. "Alright."

He shuts the door on his way out. I don't know if I should really be grateful.

-

The next three hours pass very slowly. I spend most of them staring at my phone collection, thinking Walt's going to ring and wishing for the umpteenth time I'd never taken on either of them as clients. 

Thinking about how hot Jesse's mouth was.

He's smaller than me, I know that. He's such a skinny kid - the kind that probably got the shit kicked out of him at school and then refused to go get any medical treatment. Useful, if you're a criminal. Terrible if you want to associate with the general population, a group I like to consider myself a part of.

Image, Pinkman is not. My decent apartment does not need the likes of him showing up on the security footage, so my place? Out of the question. His house was pretty eye-catching before he trashed it, and christ knows what condition it's in now. No, not his place either.

A motel. Keep things simple, trashy. 

What are you looking for, Jesse? Why do this now?

Did he know that I wouldn't stop thinking about it?

He arrives before I'm ready, before Francesca's left, and part of me hates the little asshole for it. She knows me too well and I'm not prepared to explain myself, especially before I even know what this shit really is.

"I'll lock up," I say to her in the lobby, and when she follows my glance outside I know a piercing conversation's imminent. Fuck.

She looks at me with the incredulous cynicism I hired her for, drops the keys in my hand and sets off. Never misses a chance to get out of here, that one. I would be proud if I wasn't busy being so very pissed at Pinkman.

Lurking outside, smoking and leaning back against his car. Like he has all the time in the world. Some people really don't have enough responsibility in their lives.

I realise I'm staring and turn the rest of the lights off, stepping outside and turning to lock the door. The security alarm winks red at me from inside, startling me for the first time in years.  _I shouldn't be doing this._

"Are you gonna take all day?"

Jesse, from the car. I shove the office keys into my pocket, pull the outer blinds down. I haven't made it two steps towards him before I just.. stop.

All the breath dies in my throat.

"What? You forget something?"

"Why are you doing this?" It just sorta slips out.

It takes him a second before he starts grinning, running a marlboro-holding hand over his head before spreading both hands wide. "I dunno man, because I want a fuck?"

"And you want it to be me?"

"Dude. It doesn't  _have_  to be you," he says, amused, and pushes himself forward from the car, crossing the few feet of distance towards me. He leans in close. "But I'd like it. To be you."

I put my hands on his shoulders, somehow, create a gap between us. Like I can be casual here. "Listen, Jesse, just 'cause you pay me for one pain in the ass doesn't mean I do freebies on the side."

"Who's asking for freebies?" Jesse says, and leans up all breathless, with that innocent look on his face that says he has me. And let me be clear for the stoney-faced jury here: he had me.

I let him kiss me. That's what I told myself at the time; just let it happen. 

Ooh mama, I swear I never went anywhere alone with him! I've still got all my purity intact! Yeah, apologies to the old lady, god rest her soul, but that's a pack of lies. I wanted it. Wanted him, with his fuck-you face and drug-money hands. I was curious. Thought of it as part of the early retirement deal, sweetening up the little nest egg these two were building for me. I could not have been more wrong.

-

In the end, we go back to Pinkman's place. It looks nice, so far as I can tell with his hand deep in my back pocket and a serious lack of lights. No furniture. Kind of edgy.

He pushes me into the back room and onto his bed and well, that's that. Jesse kisses harder than a freight train and moves like one too, as eager and willing as if I was a prize girl who'd finally said yes on her prom night.

There's no sex, technically. He gets himself off just grinding on me with his pants on, and by the time he's down by my knees, I'm about ready to shove his face between them. 

At the time, I'm not paying enough attention to worry; he's seeing to that, but when he glances up like he's just daring me to make a noise, something overlarge and feral crawls itself awake in my belly and I come before I can even think about it. Saul Goodman, symbol of propriety and lawful dedication (sic), bucking into Jesse Pinkman's infamous mouth. Not exactly how I planned to spend my Monday.

He's breathing hard by the time we're done, and turns and sits on the edge of the bed while I lie there and feel post-orgasm guilt lap very familiarly at my chest. For a while, neither of us says anything.

Eventually, I push myself somewhat upright and tug the silk purple boxers I was wearing back on. "So." I say, and Jesse does the human equivalent of perking up his ears. "Not that it's any of my business, of course, but being your... benevolent employee and all, I would strongly recommend you tell me if this is something you've-" I gesture, "Shared with anyone else on your payroll." No response. "Or your partner."

That makes him look around. Wide, trademark Pinkman eyes stare at me like I'm the lunatic. He shakes his head, still looking at me. "No," he says, and I hear the silent _asshole._ "Just you."

But there's something there that must poke at a sore spot, because he glances away after he says it and his teeth bite at his lower lip. That, and the fact that he's sitting on the very edge of his own bed.

Something about that says that he doesn't plan on telling anybody about this, either, so I figure I don't have to press him. Seems to me he's already pretending it didn't happen, and that's fine by me. People's fantasies rarely live up to the stark reality. 

I reach for my shirt and pull it on, making a half-hearted attempt to smooth out the creases. "You want to go to an ATM with me or are we on a credit system here?"

Jesse gives me the Look again and I hold up both hands. "Joking, just joking. Don't crucify me, I figured you could use an excuse to lighten up around here."

The guy gets up, finally, and announces in pure Pinkman fashion: "I gotta take a piss. Beer's in the fridge."

It's only ten or so minutes later, when I'm nursing a cold bottle and trying to work out what channels he can blare on his ridiculous television/soundsystem, that I remember the tightening of my stomach, the hot flash of red, something metallic that said  _make him gag on it._

Pinkman appears in the room and I quash the urge, far, far down.

"You do it," I say, "Please. I feel like this speaker's gonna blow me away."


	3. suit pending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lis pendens  
> Often used in the context of public announcements of legal proceedings to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I. Love. Francesca. Love her to death. I apologise so very much for my abysmal knowledge of Spanish, many thanks to Cooper for an enlightening lesson in Mexican insults that I’m sure you’ll see more of.
> 
> Saul also continues to see the world in sexist ways, just in case that’s something you’d prefer to avoid.

In books, in literature, it always turns out well in the end, doesn’t it? Most of the time, there’s a morality to the tale. The writer’ll give you something to take away from it, maybe learn, so you don’t make the same mistakes as them. A lot of people - it may surprise you to hear - think that the real world works the same way. Well, let me tell you right now: it doesn’t. Not even close.

Try ‘waking up after a night’s awkwardness with a client.’ Okay, maybe I’m being a little morbid, but at least it was in my own bed this time. When I remembered, washing my slightly overtired face in the mirror, I just sorta chuckled to myself and held onto the sink.

"Don’t do that again, Saul," I believe was my mental statement.

Francesca knew. I’m not as anal as mister build-a-bomb, so in my somewhat lackadaisical state the night before, I had taken the cab back home rather than to the parking lot outside the office. My bright white car was sat there like an accusatory finger when I pulled in the next morning, right next to my secretary’s. Like she’d noticed and was just casually pointing it out.

I took a deep breath, tightened the top button on my jacket and strolled right on in.

-

I enter to the faint, dirty smell of cigarette smoke. Now I’m not the type to judge, but at least crack a window, ya hear? Some of us don’t want to be chasing cancer when we’re making money.

"You’re lucky I brought my spare," comes my favourite smoker’s drawl from across the lobby. Francesca.

"You’re early," I say, digging in my pocket for the ring of keys that’ll let me into my office - the ones that she handed me the night before. "Hoping for a pay rise?"

"Egh," she grunts, gesturing at me with her cigarette. Her eyes follow it to me and unfortunately they’re as sharp as ever. Beneath the blown-out hardass exterior you see before you, sweet Francesca’s got a mind like a knife, and woe betide anyone who falls under it.

I look away. “When’d you get a spare?”

There’s a snort behind me as I open the door. I can feel her affronted expression on my back, sizing me up in the somewhat fond, but disdainful way she has. “You’re unreliable.”

I push the door open. This place is so familiar to me that it relaxes something I hadn’t even known I was keeping tense. I raise my voice ever so slightly in order to keep up the chatter. “Yeah, yeah. You just keep reminding yourself who writes your paycheck.”

Briefcase on the table; papers to one side, pens on the other. I tip a handful of phones I’m paid to keep with me at all times into the drawer next to my chair. Most of them only ring when the client’s in deep doo-doo. Perhaps I should get one of my own.

Be nice to pester someone else when I got a problem needs solving, rather than the other way around. Might even live beyond sixty-five at that rate.

One of the phones buzzes, startling me, but when I look they’re all exactly as they were before. Phantom buzzing: it’s a phenomenon, look it up. That’ll be the lack of coffee.

Right on cue, Francesca pops her head in. Must be caffeine if it’s got her on her feet this early. 

"Machine’s acting up again. You want coffee, come and get it."

Gotta love that elegant kind of brevity she has.

She reappears, just as I’m putting the last phone away. “Oh, and Jesse Pinkman called.”

I slam the desk draw shut on reflex. Francesca carries straight on, practically radiating smugness.

"He wanted to know if you were in.  _Tu chaparro_  is so needy, eh?” Thankfully she ducks out again, ranting about clients who have no idea how to conduct themselves in a heartening mix of english and spanish. 

"He’s not my chaparro," I call back outside, fooling exactly nobody.

_If anything, he’s Walt’s._

-

"What did he want?" I ask her later, when I’ve had my fill of skulking in my office and found caffeine too great a temptation to hide in there forever. 

"Hm?" Francesca’s back in her seat facing a magazine, a hot drink in one hand and a cigarette dangling out of the window in the other. "Ah, fuck if I know." She turns in her swivel chair to check where she’s tapping out the ash (the sidewalk outside).

"Wanted to know our opening times." Her eyes glance back at me. "He asked when you’d be in. Not eight in the goddamn morning, that’s for sure." She laughs an involuntary, smokey laugh.

I make a noncommittal noise into my cup and drown any requirement to answer in a long mouthful of mud. Fran’s looking at me when I finish my charade - I swear, she could make a career as a detective anywhere on this earth.

I make my own affronted face in response. “What?” And she turns away, like she’s supposed to.

"I just don’t want to see this end up like Lalo again, okay?”

It’s unusual for her to push over the line between boss and employee. You might be wondering where that line is, and I can understand where you’d be coming from, but although me and Francesca have our differences, we’re pretty respectful of each other’s privacy. 

It gets a little more dicey when there’s guns and past ties involved. My history with what Fran would call a  _puta_  named Lalo, for example.

So I stole his girl. It’s marginally more complicated than that, but we don’t have all day. It messed things up a little and I had to get a gun for my desk draw, but in the end he didn’t kill me and all’s well that ends well, right? Better off forgetting the whole mess altogether.

Except I’m not the only one who knew about it. Francesca did too, and his mob buddies held her up while they searched my office. They weren’t too happy that I’d slipped the net and escaped their hands for the time being, and well, it’s taken her a long time to forgive me. Women, right?

She might be right this time, though. If I can’t get Jesse off my back, I might find myself at the wrong end of a .38, or bigger, if Walt’s finally upgraded. Who knows what could set that old bastard off - whether it’s the one night stand out of some overprotective father complex, or just the kid spending too much time around me. Either way, it’s worth more than all the drug money I have to prevent another Lalo, and Fran’s right to be worried.

Drug dealers, christ.

"Alright," I say, still leaning against the wall. "No Lalo. Sheesh, what do you take me for, a death warrant?"

"A pain in the ass," she grunts, and goes back to her magazine.

-

Later that afternoon, when I’m dealing with a new client who has a parole violation for me to look at, I find my fingers drifting steadily towards the draw with the glock in it. I jerk them away, surprised at myself, but the urge persists.

See, this is why I have a bodyguard. A big guy like Huell, a re-enforced door and a piece at my desk will take down most any attorney-hunting crew members… but the issue is that Walt, well, he’s different. He might be all smiles and ease getting in, but within these four walls a whole other creature comes out.

That’s what keeps entering my head all through the day, over and over, gently like the sea. It’s better than thinking about Pinkman. At least when I’m worrying about saving my own skin I’m not planning to dig this hole I’m in any deeper. 

I’m actually thinking about hockey scores when the phone at my desk rings, breaking me out of my stupor. Turns out this afternoon wasn’t much of a respite, because the name Francesca drops on the other end of the line buries the knife back in my gut like it belongs there.

"Okay," I answer, "Send him in."

Jesse - little dangerous Jesse - with a nice t-shirt and a self-conscious smile on his face enters my office and I can feel everything I promised Francesca bailing out of the window. 

He shuts the door. “Hi.”

"Look who it is," I say, a little more lackluster than usual, but a witty nickname won’t come out so I just give in - return that goddamn smile. "Hey, Jesse."

"I. Yeah, so," he says, slowly making his way across the room. "I just wanted to clear some things up. You know. Make sure that - we can talk, about yesterday, alright?"

"Sure," I say. I’m sitting behind my desk, and the barrier between us looms like the Grand Canyon.

Jesse takes a seat and becomes marginally less of a problem. He’s wringing his hands a little, though, probably unconsciously, and I don’t like it. Silence stretches on as he tries and fails to put what he wants to say into words, so I fill in for him.

"You didn’t like it," I say, placing my hands on the desk to try and reassure the guy. "It wasn’t what you thought it would be-" I raise my voice when he goes to refute me. "- and I’m not judging! I know, when I was young and a little more foolish, I had my moments, but that’s life, kid. Nobody has to debate about it. I’m your lawyer, I’ll do my job, same as always, and you do yours. Nobody ever has to know it even happened, okay?" I look at him. "Okay? That help?"

He's looking at me like I've given him a lifeline, for just one second, before he drops eye contact, and drags my heart down with it. “Saul.”

"That-?"  _That not it?_

He meets my eyes again, and-  _oh god, oh no_ \- it’s with the look of a drowning man who’s decided -  _oh shit, oh fuck_ \- not to grab onto my hand. That’s it. I almost know what’s going to come out of his mouth before he says it.

"I did like it." Jesse goes a little red while he says it - not so confident now that he’s out under the lights. "I wanted to know if you’d be up for it again." He checks himself, opens his hands. "Not- just sex, I didn’t mean it like that. Like, anything. Anything you want."

Christ alive. This kid is going to kill me.

"Well," I say, still trying to process that. "What were you thinking of?" Again with the not using my brain.

Jesse clasps his hands back together, like this part requires a little more courage. “We could go grab a drink? I know a nice place downtown, doesn’t judge. Pretty quiet.” He manages to look both hopeful and apologetic at the same time.

I take a deep breath and roll a pen between my fingers until it holds still. “Alright.” 

"But - let’s say this is at least still partly legal counsel, if you get my drift - one condition. If your partner looks like he’s getting too close to what’s going on, I’m out." I raise my shoulders, give him a smile. "Can’t be too careful these days."

Jesse gives me a small smile in return. “Sure. Okay.”

"Then we’re clear."

"Crystal." There’s a scattering of nervous laughter.

"Right, well-" I get up, leaving the pen down on the desk where I won’t be tempted to bury it in my own hand, and sidle around to where Jesse’s getting to his feet and moving across the room. "Guess I’ll see you when I see you."

Just as I catch up to him, he turns around, and - as insurance, maybe - he cups his hands around my face and kisses me again. I have to lean down, I’ve got two, maybe three inches on him, and he arches up on his tiptoes to reach me like he doesn’t know he’s the end of my world. 

He’s ever so slight, and my hands are raised against his shoulders in surprise, but I lower them just to link together in the small of his back.

"I’ll see you tonight," he murmurs against my lips, then turns, and I’m left standing there like the witness stand’s worst liar as he lets himself out and Francesca’s eyes watch me from across the lobby.


	4. reason for the decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ratio decidendi  
> The point in a legal proceeding, or the legal precedent so involved, which led to the final decision being what it was.

She doesn’t say anything until the evening, when we’re closing up and Huell’s left and I’m locking the door to my office.

"I don’t suppose I can say anything to change your mind."

I turn, surprised both that she’s waited this long and by how she’s worded her concern. “Eh, you know how it is. The kid’s a livewire.”

Francesca chuckles, tucking her over-filled bag under one arm. She glances outside - I guess she’s been doing it all evening - and my cold stone heart weakens a little.

"Look," I say, putting my briefcase on a seat beside me so I can express myself better. "I know you’re worried. That’s why I’m making sure this doesn’t go any further than it needs to, alright?"

She doesn’t look convinced.

"I’m still holding to my promise. No more Lalo - you’ve got my word." I give her a little smile. "Think the kid’s got a few daddy issues he needs to work through. Maybe I can even get him off the meth."

Not the right thing to say, even if I was joking. “No, no, I’m not gonna get  _that_ involved, just.” My lips push together in a thin line. “Look, I’m bad at explaining, you know that. Can you just give me a little bit of trust, here? Please?”

I hold out the ring of keys I acquired last night, as a peace offering. 

She’s reluctant, even warier than I am right now, and that should make me worry a bit more about how I plan to manage this, but in the end she reaches out and takes the keys.

That’s Francesca’s mind set at ease for now, at least a little, but even so, she takes a few steps closer to me. “Don’t make me regret this,” she says, and prods me in the chest, so fierce and strong for someone so much smaller than me.

"I won’t," I call after her - somewhat late - as she leaves. I gather my briefcase and exit too, with the phone burning a hole in my pocket and a text saying where and when Jesse wants us to meet.

-

It’s some bar off 40, quiet but not too quiet, and not too shabby either. I’m a little impressed (and, I’ll admit it, relieved). I thought I might be heading to some skeevy dive bar on Addicts Avenue. 

Jesse’s waiting inside, past the door where a small group of smokers have gathered, and at least he’s not among them. Their eyes slip disinterestedly over me - just another guy in his late forties wearing a button-up, probably looking a little antsy.

I push open the door and cooler air rushes out - there’s some kind of music playing, but not too loud, it’s not a club. On my left there’s a series of booths with tables between them and a beat later I see Jesse, cupping his hands around a bottle and biting his lip.

He glances up when I come near, and instantly goes to get to his feet, his face lighting up like he’s relieved I even showed. “Hey.”

"Hey," I say back and slide into the seat opposite, unable to stop a little amusement at how eager he is to see me. "Sit down, kid, I’m not about to run."

Jesse takes my advice, but doesn’t stop smiling. He glances down at the bottle in his hands like he forgot it for a moment and something’s just occurred to him. “Hey, you want a drink?

I consider it, thinking briefly of Lalo, then shrug that tension off. “Sure. A beer’d be nice.”

He gets up then, almost bounces, and goes to fetch it for me. I watch after him as he heads over - there he goes, my evening’s date, perching on the bar stool while he waits for his money’s worth. What an idiot I am, agreeing to this.

He just… caught me at a moment of weakness. Shot me in the barrel I put myself in. The rest is history, as they say, but it’s not a history I want to end tragically, that’s for sure. I showed up here because I didn’t want to be rude by letting him down over the phone, but that’s as far as this is gonna go. 

 _I did like it._  Yeah, sure you did Jesse. And I like Miley Cyrus CDs. Seriously, with my head clear and as yet un-fuzzy with alcohol, the danger of this so-called arrangement’s becoming laughably clear. 

I’m ready to do it by the time he comes back, all smiles that I don’t look at and radiating happiness like an electrical fault. I open my mouth to say,  _Look, Jesse, you’re a good kid-_

"So," he says, sitting back down and setting our drinks on the table. "Got any other plans this week?" He glances at me, prodding for a response. "Or do you work on more of a case-by-case sorta… basis?"

The words stick in my throat; I clear it, manage a dry little chuckle. “No, my clients are as persistent as yours, I just have a waiting room for them to park their asses.” He’s still looking at me, hanging onto my every word. “It’s not so interesting, just work. Keeps the money rolling in.”

"Why lawyer?" Jesse asks, rolling the neck of the bottle between restless fingers. Like he’s all nervous, but hiding it. "Why’d you pick it? For the money?"

I laugh, and take a swig of beer to think about it. “I guess it always made sense to a guy like me. Unsatisfied with the law from birth, gifted with an unnatural amount of patience for dealing with the breakers of said law-” I tip the bottle towards him. "You included.” He smiles. 

"Turns out I work best when I can get my hands dirty," I say, holding the offenders up. "Call it a talent. What about you? You always want to work with Mister Shanksalot?"

That relaxes him somewhat: he leans back into the booth, drags the back of his hand over his forehead. “Aw, man, that was such a long time ago.”

His eyes catch mine as he leans forward again, balancing his elbows on the table. “Well, when I met him I thought the stuff I was, y’know -  _making -_  was like, the  _bomb,_  man. Only it turned out that Mr White was only the best cook in all of New Mexico, with all of this special equipment and science crap that I hadn’t even  _heard_  of.” He goes quiet for a minute, then waves a hand. “Anyway, he saw what I was doing and asked if I’d consider- partnering up with him. I thought he was joking,” Jesse looks at me. “But when I saw what he could  _make…”_  He taps his fingers on the table, nodding at me as if to say  _you know what it does to people._

Dollar signs, he means.

"Artistry," Jesse says. "That’s what it was. He’s the best artist I know."

He takes a drink after that, as if he’s embarrassed to have said so much.

The moment seems better now, even if I have to let him down. “Jesse,” I say, trying to find the right way to be done with it. “I think you and I might have our wires crossed.”

He glances at me like he can sense the rejection, then moves his right hand out to touch my hand, pushing his fingers right through the gaps between mine.

"This kinda came outta nowhere, didn’t it?" he says, quietly, and when I instinctively go to pull away, looking around at the bar, his eyes go wide with reassurance. "Don’t worry, I told you: they don’t judge."

So I let him hold my hand - like before - I just let him, listening to what he says and wondering faintly how the hell I got into this fix.

"I don’t wanna mess things up for you, man," he says, then rubs his thumb up over mine. "I know you’ve got a good thing going out here, and you’ve got-  _connections._  People. A respectable  _business_.”

"And I don’t fit into any of that, and to be honest I don’t want to." His earnest eyes pull my attention back to him, so honest and utterly mystifying and true. "Your business is your business. I don’t wanna screw you over, Saul." He smiles at me like he’s scared. "I just, uh, want  _you._  If that’s okay.”

There’s a whole star-spangled Humvee sitting in my throat now, and when I clear it my voice comes out crackling. “Jesse…”

"What about a trial run?" he says, cutting in, "A few weeks. If you got any like, serious regrets, still, then we’ll be done." Like that’ll be that.

I look at him - this dangerous kid holding my hand and asking me for a bit of leeway on his case, and I think of the last time I said yes when I’d thought better of it. Not too long ago, in similar company, only last time I agreed I ended up being part of a plot to land a six year old child in the hospital.

His child. Or at least, the one that he was taking care of. I still have no idea how liberating a ricin cigarette from Jesse’s pockets participated in that little exchange, but hell if I want to. These two already have me over a barrel and he wants to bend me even further.

Well, Saul Goodman’s good name is worth nothing without a backbone.

I touch his hand, then slowly extricate my fingers from his grip. “Kid,” I say, “You’re a dreamer. And that’s a valuable quality in the right circles, but here - fact is, we only did one thing  _once._  That’s what, less than a nanosecond in the lifetime of the Earth? I don’t know. Anyway.”

I hold up my palms. “You’ve gotta learn that some beaches are better off left untouched. Leave a little to the imagination, go on a vacation or get some pay-per-view. This-” I gesture across the table. “This, between you and me - it’s a fantasy. It can’t happen.”

Jesse withdraws his hand and glances down at his lap. Yeah, it’s a tough lesson, but it’s one he needs to learn sooner rather than later.

"You were gonna say this the whole time, right?" Ouch.

I shrug, trying to reason with him. “I’m your lawyer, you’re my client, and speaking from experience, the two don’t mix. Plus, if you’re under the illusion that your partner won’t take an extended interest in where you’re spending nights: don’t be. I’ve seen crackheads less jumpy than him.”

"Mr White’s not a problem," Jesse says darkly, and I shake my head, like the long-suffering guy I am. Everyone’s tried this argument before (and gotten nowhere).

"You think he’s not a problem?" I say, trying my best not to poke at the fire. "If that guy saw me come into your house at 2am in the morning, he would bother us day and night until he got some answers. There’s no secrets where your partner’s concerned." 

Jesse snorts, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Oh really.”

"Yeah! Really." I’m going to lose my eyebrows into my hairline if this goes any further, but if this kid honestly thinks Walt doesn’t work on people like a dog with a bone-

"I’ve kept secrets from him," says Jesse, and his eyes challenge me when I look up. " _Yeah._ Almost the whole time I’ve known him, and he never knew.”

I shrug my shoulders. “Well, I wouldn’t care about what music you were downloading if I was your drug baron, but that’s your problem.”

"It’s not  _music,_ " Jesse almost spits, and I look at him reluctantly. "It’s not, what kind of breakfast I had this morning,  _okay?”_  Gone is the happy-go-lucky look of before, his lip now curled, his eyes steely and hard. “It’s stuff even  _Mike_  wouldn’t know. So I just bet that Walter  _Hartwell_  White has zero fucking clue.” 

"It’s not uh," I click my fingers, "What’s her name, Angela?"

Jesse suddenly blinks at me, surprised. “No, no it’s not. Andrea. No.” He glances away, scratches at the stubble on his jaw. “We broke up, by the way.”

"Her kid okay?"

His eyes flit up to me. “Yeah. Yeah he is. He’s a tough one.”

"Well." I say, and shift in my seat. "Good to hear."

"It was just some berries he ate," Jesse says, sounding a little far away. He shrugs his shoulders. "Could’ve happened to anyone."

"Uhuh," I say, very uncomfortable with this subject. I take a drink. "So, what’s the story?"

Jesse blinks at me.

"What’s the secret? The down-low, the scoop?"

"Oh," Jesse says, and disappears beneath his upturned bottle for a second. When he reappears, he looks like he’s taken the phrase ‘liquid courage’ very literally.

He lets the bottle swing beneath his grip, offering me a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s something he can’t know, or he’ll kill me.”

That silences me for a moment, before I find my voice. “Christ knows we’ve got a lot of those.” I hold up my drink. “To Walter White’s friends,” I say, and he holds up what little’s left of his. “May we never be his enemies.”

"I’ll drink to that," Jesse says, and finishes his off in one slug. "Want another round?"

"I’m buying," I say, getting out my wallet. "I’m getting a tequila."

Jesse snorts. “Bring me whatever’s  _not_  been in Cosmopolitan.” 

I pat him on the shoulder as I head past. ”Kid, you really don’t know anything about drinks, do you?”

-

By the time we exit the bar, the lights are brighter, the music’s louder and the whole world’s swaying as I lean on Pinkman’s shoulder.

"See, he had  _no_  fucking idea that- that I was even  _there_ , right? And he was just digging this hole-” Jesse dissolves into hiccuping laughter. “Over and over. No fucking clue.”

I almost lose my balance as he leans forward. “Woah, hey hey, don’t keel over kid. I’m barely walking here.”

Jesse wipes his mouth on his sleeve and squints sideways at me. “Sorry. Uh.” He gazes out over the parking lot. “How the fuck are we gonna get home?”

I join him, my eyes landing on the car that neither of us are in any state to drive. “Fuck.” Out of nowhere, a bubble of laughter stirs up inside me. “Guess you could say we’ve dug ourselves a hole here.”

The kid loses it, and we hold on to each other for a moment until we can get our act together again.

"Aw, man," he drags his hand over his eyes. "We could find a hotel? I think there’s one around here someplace. Fiat… huerat… something, sounds like a car. Ask these dudes."

He’s already wandering over to the group of smokers, fewer people now that it’s late. “Yo, you guys know where a hotel is around here?”

One of the men at the front of the group points down the road. “Bout three blocks that way. Left at Louisiana.” He looks at me. “Don’t I know you?”

I belatedly realise we’ve been putting on a spectacle. “They tell me I have one of those faces.”

"Right," says the guy, and I beckon Pinkman. "C’mon, kid."

When I look back as we’re weaving out of the parking lot, the stranger smirks past his cigarette and points at me with both hands. Better call Saul. Jesus christ.

Somewhere along the long route to the hotel, Jesse looks up at me, propped up against my arm. “Hey,” his voice is slightly slurred, but soft. “Hey. Saul.”

"What?" I ask him. There aren’t many cars on the road anymore; it makes it easier to walk and talk without getting blinded by headlights in my eyes.

His fingers cling to me, and I realise he’s barely staying on his feet. “Thanks,” he says, and blinks slowly.

"For what?" I say, easy and quiet. I look out over the street. "Being an asshole?"

"F’coming," he says, his eyes looking up at me all forlorn.

"Look, Jesse-"

"I know," he interrupts, waving a hand and losing his balance in the process.

I pull him back towards me, lean him down and kiss him.

He makes a noise of surprise, then softens, his thin wrists held gently in my hands between us, his tattoo snaking out like it either wants to reach for me or bite me, but his mouth is soft and willing and he tastes like what I’ve been drinking.

"Shut up," I say, then kiss him again, and again, and his hands break out of my grip to scrabble under my shirt on my back - his hands on my skin.

Jesse makes a noise again, but this time it isn’t surprise, and I almost growl in frustration. “Where the fuck is this hotel?”

"There," he says, and points past me. "There, the Hyatt."

I steal a hand around his waist and haul him upright, leaning him heavily against my side. He weighs almost nothing, and the thought spurs me onward. “Don’t pass out on me, kid.”

“‘won’t,” he says, stumbling along with me. His fingers are holding onto me like I’m his anchor to the land of the living right now, and somehow I doubt it.

They give us a double room for an extortionate amount of money, and we sag against each other in the elevator. One of his hands is still hooked in the folds of my shirt, the other clutched around my upper arm - the one he’s currently resting his head on.

He’s fading in and out, and by the time we get to the right floor he almost needs shaking awake, so I just guide him along the hall, shoving the keycard into our room and pulling him in.

"M’sorry," Jesse says, as he sinks onto the bed I lay him down on.

"It’s okay, kid," I say, as I roll up my sleeves and head into the bathroom. There, I splash cold water onto my face until I can at least see straight, then shove two glasses under the faucet.

He’s almost asleep by the time I get back, all rumpled up on the bed, still with his shoes on. 

"Hey," I say, kneeling down next to him, "Jesse. Drink this."

He stirs, and when he has his hands around the cup I help him back up so that he’s at least got his head against the pillows. After a few sips he goes to put it away with a groan, but I push his hand back. “All of it, young master Pinkman. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

While he does what he’s told, I move down to his feet and untie the laces of his shoes, sliding them off and onto the floor next to me. There’s a blanket folded up nearby and I unravel that too, laying it out over him. There.

To me, rather drunk and kneeling beside his bed, it seems like there could’ve been worse ways to spend this night. Drinking at home, maybe, or bearing witness to the latest hit show on Lifetime, but here, with the kid nestled before me smelling of alcohol and cigarettes, I feel somehow more content. Like the kind of petty distraction those things provide you with has always been diverting attention away from something else.

I take the glass out of his hand and set it aside. He’s asleep now, breathing quietly out of his mouth. I raise my hand, hesitantly, not wanting to wake him up, but in the end he only sighs when I stroke the pad of my thumb across his cheekbone, and over his ear.

"Night, Jesse," I say, and take my time with re-hydrating, watching hotel tv with the volume turned down low until the noise of the commercials reduces to a far away hum.


	5. proof overcomes presumption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> probatio vincit praesumptionem  
> Evidence always carries greater weight than conjecture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this chapter brings it up into explicit territory. Also, fellow emetophobes may want to skip over the first scene, although it is very brief.
> 
> I’ve laughed at Huell’s lines on every single re-read. His "Effie" is one nickname Francesca allows.

I wake up, with a headache stirring behind my eyes and the buzz of overly loud television making itself known to my brain. Ow, christ, this hurts.

I blearily open my eyes and hold my hand up against the light coming through the drapes. My watch glints in it and an alarm goes off in the back of my head. What time-? What day is it?

Weekday. Eleven a.m.  _Fuck!_

Forcing myself upright, I blink through the dizziness and pinch the bridge of my nose. Think, Saul, think. Where the  _hell-_

From the bathroom comes my answer. Someone having a worse time than I am, followed by muffled cursing into the toilet. Ah, right. Jesse. We stayed the night - at least, it was  _one_  night, I think.

"Don't ask me where we are," he says, his voice hoarse, when I lean on the bathroom doorframe. "Some hotel. Ugh." He rests his forehead on his hands on the rim of the seat. He's sweating and shivering, poor thing.

"Here, kid-" I say, pushing myself away from the door and depositing a half-empty bottle of Tylenol on the countertop. "Take some aspirin, when you feel like it. It'll help."

Jesse turns his face faintly towards me on his hands. "I have  _drank_  alcohol before, y'know," he says, but his weakness takes some of the venom out of it.

"I know," I say, and pat my hand on his shoulder. He stiffens, like he's not expecting it, and I file that away into the long list of things that never happened, turning away. "If you start spitting blood, go to the hospital. Otherwise, you'll be fine."

"Where're  _you_  going?" He twists around, squinting at me adjusting my collar in the doorway.

"Work," I say, and smile grimly. "Crime waits for no man, as they say."

-

"You look like shit," Francesca says as I slip my way through the busy lobby and in through her door. 

I'm behind on at least five of the appointments sitting in that room. "Tell me something I  _don't_  know."

She gestures to the oak door behind me. "You've got a client waiting for you."

What? I glance back, to make sure she really means that door. "Who'd you let into my office?"

"A  _Walter White._  Seemed to think you and he had something to talk about." Francesca's eyes look all tight, my own worry reflected right back at me.

I press my lips together and loosen my tie. "I'll handle it."

The door seems almost too thick now, like it really is keeping a wild animal trapped behind it. I ramp up the charm to compensate.

"Sorry about that," I say, shutting the door behind me and striding into the room. "Had one too many tall talkers down at lockup. DEA's got a way with words." I sit my briefcase down alongside the desk and fake joviality. "How can I help?" 

He doesn't speak for a moment, and when I look up he's sitting in the visitor's chair in front of me like he has another bomb parked under his arm.

"Mike," he says finally, in a growl. Oh, thank god.

"How's he doing? Got your supply running good and tight?"

"It's not the supply I'm worried about. It's the  _money._ " Walt looks like he's been stewing in this one for too many hours. My headache gives a long, unwanted throb.

He raises his hands. "I thought we had a deal. The occupants leave, Jesse and I complete the cook, then Mike disperses the product. In no way, shape or form was I notified that half our money would be heading to nine men who failed to do their job."

"Mike's guys?" I shake my head. "Don't they have a right to their share of the proceeds? You  _did_ put them in jail."

Walt grips the arms of the chair. " _I_  did? I put them in? If they were as smart as we're paying them for - which is a lot, by the way - they would have been out of the country the moment their boss was killed." 

I look up at him from where I'm stood with my hands planted on the desk. "Well, not all of us have as good a sixth sense as you."

Walt spreads his arms -  _exactly_. "Which is why the pay should be going to the people who have  _earned_  it."

He gets up in frustration, wandering away from me around the room. I breathe out a little sigh of relief.

"Have you tried talking to him?" I gesture to him. "Mike's a reasonable guy, maybe you could make a deal. Negotiate."

Walt has his elbow propped under his knuckles, fiddling with his beard in pure Dr. Evil style. "No no, no one's negotiating. This is not a debatable matter, you understand?"

Of course it isn't. It's about principle with him, always is.

His voice is tight with anger, almost spitting out the words. "If I could just make him see  _reason-"_

"But Mike's stubborn and won't listen, right?" Walt glances at me, like he's surprised I'm still here. "Look, why don't I talk to him? It isn't personal with you but maybe it is with him - he knows these guys, he wants to make sure they get their due. I'll see what we can come up with."

"And no shares from me or Jesse." His rage is still rippling out of him. It's sort of scary, in the way that a far-off storm can be scary. At this distance to me now, he just looks like an issue. "I don't want him using  _our_  money for  _his_  problem." 

I hold my hands up. "I can't promise anything, but I'll make sure to voice your concerns. What are mediators for?"

"Good," Walt says, stood in the middle of the room. Then he squints at me, like he's just now seeing me. "You look terrible."

I touch my face on instinct, and laugh awkwardly to diffuse the situation. "Just a few too many late nights. Not every client's as reliable as the meth business."

Walt just nods. Ever the appreciative audience. He turns away, and just as I think I'm about to get away with it, my cell rings.

 _Jesse._ Of course it is. Walt hovers at the door.

"Saul Goodman," I say into the phone.

"Saul," Jesse says on the other end, and breathes. "You got any more aspirin?"

"Did you take the entire bottle?" I ask, incredulous.

There's a pause. He sounds like he's out of the bathroom at least. "Oh."

Walt shifts where he's stood, looking back at me.

"Na- nah, I think there's still some." Sheets crinkle in the background. "I'm go look."

"Okay." I cover the handset with one hand and point at it with the other, mouthing  _drug problem_ at Walt.

He nods like he understands. "Call me when you've talked to Mike."

"Sure," I say, and he leaves.

"Yeah, there's still some pills in here," Jesse says in my ear while I'm listening for the outer door.

"Do you know who was just in here?" I hiss into the phone.

"No, who?"

"Your grandfather. Big Bird. Your  _partner,_  that's who."

"Oh, shit," Jesse says. He still sounds a little drunk. "He say anything about me?"

"No, nothing." I stare at the door again, paranoid that he's listening in. "He was too concerned with Mike to notice that his sous-chef spent last night getting shit-faced with his criminal attorney."

Jesse giggles in my ear. 

"This is serious, kid!" I tuck my hair back from where it's fallen over my forehead. "If he'd picked up instead of me, how would you have explained that?" I sigh, heavily. "Look, don't call me when I'm at work. Texting is fine."

"And what should I text you?" Jesse says, clearly lying back down. "Oh, Saul, you wanna get it on? You wanna get shit-faced, is that it?"

I stop at my desk. "No-"

"You wanna get hammered, Saul? You feelin' randy at your desk today?" Jesse sounds like he's smiling really wide. "Y'know, I could wait at the hotel for you. Sit here, think about you showing up."

I shake my head, brushing my hand over the bridge of my nose. "Do you remember anything I said last night?"

"Yeah, and if you were so  _adamant_ _,_  why did you kiss me? Hm?"

To my silence, he carries on. "I remember  _that._  You seemed pretty into it to me."

"I was drunk," I say, half-heartedly. "I lost control of my hands."

"Bull. Shit." Jesse says, succinct as usual. "You woulda walked me into an  _alleyway_  if the hotel hadn't been right there."

I make a face. He's right, and he knows it. "I gotta work," I say, a little kindlier into the phone. "My secretary'll kill me if I walk out this early. Go home, get some rest, I'll be out later."

"Yeah. My house. Whatever, don't take forever." Click.

I look at my cell for a moment after he hangs up, before I start typing in a text.  _Your car's at Uptown Blvd. Don't drive until you can walk. Take care._

I stare at the sentences I've written, rereading them a few times, before slowly backspacing the last one. There, perfect.

The room's on me, anyway, so he shouldn't have any trouble checking out, and if there's anything amiss the staff'll call me, so really there's nothing to worry about.

Then why do I feel so antsy? The tequila?

Likely.

I put the phone in my pocket and sit down at last, pushing my hands over my face, before I reach over and key in a button on the handset next to me. "Francesca, could you send Huell in, please?"

"He's coming," she drawls after a beat, and if I listen closely maybe I can even hear a little relief that I'm still alive. 

Babineaux enters, closing the door behind him. "W'sup?"

I drag my fists across my eyelids before focusing on Huell. Business as usual here. Murderous rantings don't tend to wait. "Is Walt still out there?"

He glances back, then gestures up over his shoulder. "No, he left 'bout ten minutes ago. What, you want me to get him for you?"

I shake my head. "Guy's got a beef the size of a Taco Cabana steak special. I want you to keep him  _out,_ capiche?"

Huell gives me a look. "What d'you want me to do? Stand in front of the door?"

I raise my hands. "Sounds perfect. Just don't let him in my office. It's unnerving."

"Alright," Huell says, as if I'm overreacting. He glances pointedly at the cell on my desk while I press my fingers against my temples. "Y'know, Effie  _did_  try to call you. Must've sent 'bout ten text messages."

"Everyone's a critic," I say, then look up in apology when he doesn't respond, a little mollified. "Look, I had a bad night. Best case scenario, he won't ever come in early again. Heisenberg likes his meetings _rápido._ "

I wave a hand. "But, if he shows up and I'm not here... tell him I'll call him."

Huell raises his eyebrows. "And if that don't work?"

I make a face, and my forehead creases. "What do I look like, an 8-ball? Standing still's probably your best shot with this guy."

In response, Huell huffs and turns away, letting himself out the door.

I call after him. "You can send in Mr. Farnsworth, now." Hours late, but I know he'll still be here. The loyalty of low-budget clientele. 

These are my bread and butter customers, as they're more fondly known. They're low risk, low pay, but they keep me in business and with the kind of result these people are after, the likelihood they'll get Sonny Jim outta jail without his cherry popped on any other lawyer is next to none.

They tend to come without the headaches you get with higher risk cases, like my venerable client Walter White. Sure, I have to deal with them in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands, but they're reliable income, and at the end of the day, there's a regular swarm of them.

"So, you wanna sue your boss," I say, as a new dull-eyed and sparkle-tailed customer of the Saul sits down in his chair. "You, sir, have come to the right place."

-

So how did I end up here? You've been wondering, right? What's with the long story, all the detail, the yapping?

I'm getting there. See, sometimes it's better to have a bit of background first. Makes sure you get to know the person, find out how they might handle a situation, or what pitfalls they're about to fall into. You might've guessed a few of mine already. I wouldn't blame you.

I like to remember what I can of the night he and I stumbled back from the bar, barely seeing straight, because it's unfiltered. It doesn't have any expectations to it - there's no evidence, nothing to look for. Very innocent. PG-13, if you will.

As the day went by and I passed client after client out my door, I had time to wonder what that night would entail. Would it be as innocent as last time? Would he fall asleep at the door? Or would it be something else, something unforeseen that I couldn't prepare for?

I decided to look forward to it; push all the worry and guilt far behind me. Just one night. Tomorrow would be another day, either way.

-

"Pinkman," I say later, tapping my knuckles on the door again. "Open up. Time's passing."  _And I don't like being stuck out here for anyone to see._

At long last, the latch clicks and the door opens inward. There he is, holding onto the doorframe like a primate, in some thin t-shirt that clings to him in a way that it shouldn't. "Hey."

"Hey," I say, lamely. "I woulda brought more alcohol, but."

Jesse laughs and sways closer on his pivot. "What, you need to be drunk to do this?" He smiles. "Don't sound too eager, M- mm."

Finally, his grip drops from the doorframe and he turns to let me pass. "You comin' in?"

I shrug past him, glancing around his living room like a PTSD war veteran checking for exits. "It's a nice place." I gesture to the couch. "Looks better with the lights on."

"Yeah, uh, I redid the walls. After, y'know." Pinkman stares at me wandering around like he's not sure quite what to make of it, before the corner of his mouth starts quirking up. "Saul?"

I glance back. "Yeah?"

Jesse comes over and grabs my sleeve-cuff, pulling me in his direction. "C'mon."

I follow. What else can I do? I don't know what to do with my hands, almost wish I'd brought another cactus, and every word building up under my tongue is more ridiculous than the last.

He stops when we reach his bedroom, turning around to grab something on his bed and put his hand (and my hand, by proxy) against my chest. "You look totally freaked."

"Nah," I cough out. "Missed out on beauty sleep. Not that I'm complaining."

Pinkman laughs a little and I can feel my heart under his handprint beating and beating and beating. He's right, I can think of a million and one reasons not to do this. The first one being that I don't ever tend to react like this.

"Hey," I say, and take my hand over to his shoulder, where I hold onto him on instinct, my thumb creeping just under his sleeve. "Jesse?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever see those commercials about the vacation spots in the Caribbean? Those huts on tropical islands, in the middle of nowhere?"

He nods, just watching me and listening. He's very warm.

I glance away for a moment. "There's these little crabs walking across the beach. Oceans bluer than anything you've ever seen. You wake up, and you can  _hear_  how alive it is around you." I take a little breath, and let it out, looking back at him. "And then you come back, and it's like the world's gotten smaller. You don't want to be around here anymore."

I stroke the skin on the side of his neck, watching him turn into it. "You think I look freaked? That's what I'm afraid of, kid. Tropical islands."

He stares at me for a full minute, maybe thinking, before he slowly lifts his hand and presses a button. The TV next to us beeps.

"Uh, okay. Do you wanna play some GTA, though? 

I blink at him, then glance at the screen where the PS3 logo is already fading in. Jesse steps away from me, hesitantly.

"There's two controllers. Well, three, but." He offers me one he's just picked up. "They didn't... put in multiplayer, so it's just one person. You can go first?" 

I take the controller from him like I'm wearing baseball gloves. I'm really no stranger to video games, but this is pretty far from where I was expecting the evening to go.

Jesse sits down on the edge of his bed and pats the space next to him. He looks so hopeful that I just start chuckling, joining him there and pressing the right buttons to load the game. "I haven't played GTA in years."

"It's the same," he says, more confident now that I'm speaking. "Shoot a couple guys, steal their car..."

"Sell some meth, dodge the DEA and work on my tan?" I say, and he looks at me. "These games get closer to reality every day."

"Yeah, um." Jesse belatedly tries to grab the controller as the save file loads and his character comes into frame.

I move it out of his way and grin, turning the camera around to get a better view. "He looks just like you!"

"N-nah man." He's actually a little flustered, muttering something about not having too many options.

"Older, maybe," I compromise, and glance at him sidelong. "You in twenty years."

Jesse just holds up a hand like he doesn't want me scrutinising him. "Whatever, man. Just get in the car."

I only get yelled at a couple hundred times while I'm re-learning how to drive and fire a virtual gun. Jesse has auto-targeting turned off and when I miss a guy popping off shots from behind his car for the nth time, I scroll through the menu and turn it back on, deaf to his complaining - "Kid, some of us work more than we play."

But mid-mission, with a helicopter above me and Jesse directing me through the streets, our little team works together better. Even if I bail out of his flashy car right before it hits a building at the end.

Middle-aged Jesse Pinkman walks away from the explosion with a sizeable hole in his pocket, but another passed mission under his belt. There. Looks like ol' Saul's not so bad at this after all.

I hand the controller over. "How's about you take a t-"

Lips are on mine, hands are on my shoulders, and a younger Pinkman is suddenly right at my side and pushing into my space. I drop the controller - it doesn't seem so important anymore, grabbing him around the waist to prevent us both from falling.

He's all over me, and I fold into it, eyes closed and fingers linking in the small of his back. Oh, Jesse, you're so cute.

"Was all that a ploy?" I ask him, as he pushes me down onto the bed.

"Shut up," he says, and kicks off his shoes, unbuckling his pants and shoving them away as he climbs back on.

I wriggle backwards up the bed, toeing my own shoes off and knocking them away onto the floor. Jesse just comes right for me like a cat, pausing at my waist to undo my fly until he catches sight of my face and crawls up to reach me, dipping back into my mouth.

When he breaks away he grinds his hips against mine. "Unngh, you're so hot."

I don't know what to say to that, so instead of thinking I just reach forward and grab his boxers-covered ass, forcing him down and making him arch back into me.

Jesse's forehead disappears against my shoulder and he makes surprised, stuttered noises. "Yeah, like that."

"You're insatiable," I say, and turn my head to kiss him, my mouth searching for his lips: that connection. He meets me and bites my lower lip, and I growl. "C'mere."

While he's still moving, I back up against the pillows and force him more into my lap. It looks like my legs are the ones that'll be spreading, though, and I laugh into his shoulder, shifting them apart.

"How've you still got your pants on?" he says, breathless, and gets his fingers over the edges of my slacks, raking them down as far as they'll go like this. 

"Habit," I say, and hook my fingers into the neck of his shirt, yanking him forward again. He's so thin and bony under those layers, his white stick legs jutting out of his boxers. I'm more interested in what's in front.

I palm him through the fabric first, watching his face, then pull him out and get a grip on him, shoving his boxers down over that lily-white ass. He bucks into my hand, eyes shut, mouth open, and I think to myself that I could do this all goddamn day.

His back is quavering as I run my free hand over it, down across the dip of his spine, and I get a good idea in the process. "Hey. Hey, kid."

Jesse's eyes flicker open. He looks dazed, caught up in it. "Yeah?" He glances downwards at my lap. "Oh, you want me to-?"

"Nah," I say, and pull my hand back up, spitting into it. "Tell me if you like this."

Back my hand goes, and Jesse lets me do what I want without question, hovering in the grip I have on his cock like unfettered energy. My palm falls on his ass and I pull him closer to me, but when he shifts my way I move my fingers down and slide two of them down against his asshole.

The reaction is instantaneous. Jesse twinges forward like I've hit him, breathing hard and curling over. Good enough. My spit drizzles over my fingers as I rub over him again, then again, the rest of my fingers biting against his ass.

"Sauul," he groans, his hips struggling to move the hold I have on his erection, so I finally let him, stroking that too until his forehead is pressed into the pillow next to me.

There's no way I can get off in this position if he doesn't touch me, but I don't care. He makes one hell of a pretty image just like this, sweating and whimpering next to my ear, hips thrusting.

"How long have you thought about this?" I murmur, and he bucks sharply, decorating my abdomen with no control whatsoever. It's beautiful.

He lies there breathing for a long moment, our skin sticking together, until his heart starts beating somewhat close to normal again. I can feel it juddering between us.

When he pushes himself up on his hands, he notices the mess and glances up guiltily. I'm still wearing the shirt I walked in with; I guess he feels bad about giving me a stain. Right now, I couldn't care less.

I grab his face, running my fingers over the fuzz of his shaved hair, and arching my neck up for a kiss. My cock twitches against his belly and he glances down again, the corner of his mouth quirking as I claim his mouth and roll my hips against his.  _No forgetting._

He gives me a moment, before breaking away and smirking at me like a very good thought has just occurred to him. "I got that," he says, and hustles down onto his knees, drawing his tongue up the length of my erection like he's daring me to come right there.

"Fuck," I breathe, grasping the sheets to try and prevent him from accomplishing it.

Jesse has no qualms about diving right in, and I'm so hard already that it's an uphill battle to keep some sort of a reputation. His lips feel unbelievable and his eyes keep darting up to look at me. God, this is so different to last time.

It's only when I've given up trying to hold out and am waiting for the feeling to overtake me that I notice Jesse's cum on the hand I used to jerk him off and spattered on my belly. I dig my fingers into the mess while Jesse watches, and his eyes stare up at me as I reach for him, pressing thin, slick lines against his cheek. 

I arch back, then, and close my eyes, but his hands on that same spot wake me, and I come violently to the sight of a breathless Jesse Pinkman, red and wet and smeared with his own cum.

-

"What was that about... islands?" Jesse asks me later, when we've cleaned up and have reclaimed the bed, nestled against the pillows with a PS3 controller in our hands.

I'm playing for now - he's got his head resting on my shoulder and is watching the screen waiting for me to fuck up this mission. After a second, I glance down, remembering that speech with a jolt.

I think about it, weighing my options, and meanwhile a guy on the screen starts shooting at me and I race Older Pinkman to cover. Eventually, the gunfire in the alleyway dies down.

"I went on vacation to the Bahamas one time. Great place. Nights were something else." My character trots down the alley. "You know how when the sun sets you can't see shit in the desert? It was like that, but warm, and you could hear the ocean."

I clear my throat. "Anyway, one day I'm sitting there, laying in the sand at high tide with my mai tais, and I realise I'd really miss the place when I was back in Albuquerque, right? That this was something special, 'cause ABQ doesn't sell mai tais. But it was more than that."

Our guy sticks his elbow into a car and breaks his way in. "I knew on some level that, unconsciously, I'd always want to go back there. Even if I was bankrupt, or maybe it'd be worse if I was rolling in it. This was gonna be my Paris."

I curl my arm around him a little tighter. "I get the feeling you're like one of those islands, kid. It makes me nervous."

Jesse peers up at me. "'Cause you think I'm like, irresistible?"

I chuckle and feel my heart hitch. "Yeah. Something like that."

A shutter sound echoes across from the tv and we both look back at the screen in time to see the character collapse across the car. Jesse holds out a hand expectantly and I pass the controller over, reaching for another pillow to put under my neck and let me see better.

"What'd it feel like when you got back?" Jesse asks, after a moment, while he restarts the mission.

"Hm?" I'm stuffing the pillow into place, trying to get comfortable. "Oh." I fold my free hand behind my head. "Like I'd just left the best place alive."


	6. injury is not done to the willing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> volenti non fit injuria  
> Notion that a person cannot bring a claim against another for injury, if said person willingly placed themselves in a situation where they knew injury could result.

"I know it’s late," I say into the phone, keeping my voice down. "But I need a moment of your time. Tomorrow would be best."

There’s the expected grumbling, and then he gives me an answer.

I glance back to Jesse’s front door out of the car window. ”Right. Well, where can we meet? I don’t want either of them catching wind of it.”

He gives me a place. See? Guy’s _reasonable._  “Perfect. Okay, go get some sleep, and say hi to Kaylee for me, would ya?”

Mike hangs up without another word. Figures.

I put the cellphone back into my pocket and start up the engine. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I could have stayed over tonight, but I have a distaste for sleeping in unusual places. Besides, the kid is 100lbs on a good day; his liver must be working overtime.

My car pulls away from his house and that’s that. A little late-night radio adds to the drive and I listen to DJs debating the importance of classical rock all the way home.

-

I’m more on my game the following morning. Mike’s where he said he’d be, I’m out of my office and the Albuquerque sun is shining.

He glances at me when my car pulls up next to his, barely interested in my arrival. That’s his style. He doesn’t even say a word until I’m on my feet and checking out New Mexico’s dusty horizon - yeah, we’re alone out here.

"If you’ve got something you’d like to say, now would be the time." Mike says to me, eventually. He’s leaning back against his car, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

I fiddle with the pin on my breast pocket. It came undone on the drive over and I’m trying to get it back in the same hole. Still, time to stop. He’s not a good guy to offend. “Yeah.” I pat it down one more time and let it alone, staring back out over the desert. “We’ve got a problem. More specifically, you do.”

I glance at him. “Our friend made his way into my office yesterday morning to tell me how irritated he is that your guys in lockup are still getting their share of the Benjies. He doesn’t want it coming out of his pocket.” I bite my lip. “ _Or_ Jesse’s, for that matter. So that’s about the size of the issue.” I gesture with one hand. “Any suggestions?”

Mike raises his eyebrows incrementally and chews the side of his mouth. “Already taken care of.” Just like that.

I stare back at him and squint, not sure what miraculous angel just came down from the heavens to replace my fixer. “You're kidding. Really?” A very heavy weight is crossing its fingers about lifting off of me.

You can almost feel the sigh emanating from Mike. Yeah, even you have to explain yourself, sunshine.

He lifts his hand off his car with what looks like a tremendous effort and gestures towards me. “Walt’s got a problem with empathy. And I’ve got a problem with him.” He pauses for effect. Loud and clear. “The only thing that Walt hates more than other people is waiting. So, I’m making him wait.”

That doesn’t sound very promising.

Mike recognises my expression as an answer and leans back against his sun-warmed car. “My guys will get their legacy pay - out of my share - and in return I get to make Walt  _stew._ ”

My lip twitches. “Well, thanks for the explanation, but it comes a little late. Can I get a heads-up next time? Guy broke into my office.”

Mike just looks at me.

I shake my head. “Never mind. Look, just, tell him before he has a hernia, okay?” Jesus. Some people.

"You’re nervous, Saul," he says, as he turns and opens the door of his car. "He can smell it. It’s why he hasn’t killed you yet."

"Very funny, wise guy," I call after him as he shuts himself in.

I think I can see amusement somewhere in his face as he starts his car and his wheels dig fingerprints into the desert, scouring dirt up into the air. Yeah, thanks so much for the comforting words.

There’s no signal in the middle of nowhere, so I wait until I’m back in civilisation before I call Walt. I’m sitting in the middle of a Taco Bell parking lot, trying to work up an appetite somewhere public.

"It’s me," I say, glancing nervously in my rearview mirror like somehow he’ll know to show up here. "I talked to Mike."

"Well?" Walt sounds like he’s in some unlucky person’s house, churning out poison through his big machines. I wonder if Jesse’s there too.

I run my hand over my face, warring with myself internally. Not much morality to my personality, really, but a guy’s gotta have some loyalty to him. “He agreed, after some persuading. From now on, you can expect your shares to be one hundred percent yours.”

Walt’s pleased. “Good.” And gloating. Like he did the work, not me. A moment later, he adds: “And Jesse’s?”

"Hunky-dory," I say, trying to sound perfectly normal. "It’ll all be coming out of Mike’s cut - he's the only one paying these guys. You and the kid are out of the woods obligation-wise."

"Mmm." Walt doesn’t sound completely okay with that. There’s motion like he’s moving away from the cook, maybe out of hearing range. In the silence that follows, his voice seems deeper. "Have you considered what will come of letting this continue?" He prompts me. "Nine guys, all facing jail and the DEA? Someone will talk. There will be at least one who will want to save his own skin."

He carries on. “And when he does? That, Saul, would not be profitable for either of us.”

I fidget with my hair, pushing strands out of the way via the mirror. “So you’re thinking something more… elaborate? Scare ‘em til they value time over money?”

There’s dead silence on the other end, until at last I hear Walt breathe. “No. I think you know what I mean.” He’s not smiling, but I can feel something of that same emotion coming through in his voice. I’m not sure exactly what that is. “We’ll talk soon.”

Walt ends the call and when I take the cell away from my ear, the temperature in the car seems to have risen by a few degrees. I fish my bright blue handkerchief out of my pocket and press it to my forehead, hoping for relief.

Honestly? If you’d come to me six, seven months ago, maybe a year, and said “Hey, Saul! Mr. Goodman! Do I have a case for you.” I would’ve accepted without much more than a brief blurb and a handful of cash, but these two - three, four if you count Mrs White - have turned my simple mode of business on its head.

I shouldn’t have to worry about who may be looking over my shoulder every time I’m making a call, or working one side around the other. I’m just the middle guy. I don’t make the rules, I don’t enforce them; a lot of the time no one seems to care about me and mine, and that’s just fine by me. I’ve never wanted anybody else interfering with my way of doing things.

So with that in mind, you’d think choosing to deal with the extraordinary messes this crew seem to land themselves in, with an insane boss who might very well end up cutting off all the rest of them one day, must mean I'm mad, right? I can’t be in my right mind, here. But I can’t get out of it either. Not yet. This is one rocky road I’m walking on, but there’s always a guy just behind me, thinking about pulling a gun.

I’d rather keep them happy, wouldn’t you?

-

Walt gives me time to recuperate. Jesse takes up my nights. We fall into a pattern as such - I field my calls, deal with clients, and in my off time I end up in Jesse’s bed or car writing up a new definition of debauchery.

Mike lets me know soon after that he’s laid down the new financial law regarding their drug money, but Walt doesn’t call me to gloat, or say anything more about the “methods” he was alluding to back when we spoke. I count my blessings and don’t push where it isn’t needed. Figure I’ll sleep better.

There is one day - and I’ll tell you, it isn't three weeks since the kid kissed me yet, almost two, in fact, and things are settling back into a workable regime - when the little structure I’ve built for myself finally gets a knock to its poles. It happens when I open my office door to ask why the next client’s taking so long and see Jesse Pinkman standing there instead, with Francesca boring holes in the back of his shirt with her eyeballs.

"Pinkman!" I say, surprised and off balance. I gesture to the open door. "Come on in! This is a surprise."

"You can drop the act, Saul," Jesse says as I close the door with a quick glance out there to see if he’s brought anyone with him.

My fake smile falls as I turn back and hurry over to my desk. “Were you followed?”

Jesse is silent as I scuttle around the back and put my hand meaningfully on one of the desk drawers, ready to pull it out and defend myself if I have to.

Then: “What? No, man.”

I press my lips together. “You sure? ‘Cause there’s a lot of hungry bears out there as of late, and I for one would prefer  _advance warning.”_

He stares at me, clearly confused and offended.

I let myself breathe at last, taking my hand off the drawer and pressing it to my brow instead. “Kid, you can’t just come running in here. My life flashed before my eyes.”

Jesse stares at me, pissed off. “ _Sorry._  I didn’t like, assume you’d get your panties in a knot.” He shrugs his shoulders. “What - I can’t call, I can’t walk in here or  _say_  anything?”

I look at him, trying to think before I speak, then glance down to my desk and sigh. “Look - it needs work.”

"Yeah." Jesse’s got that look in his eyes that makes them all tight, like he’s threatening to bite. "It does."

Giving up the fight, I find my chair and sit down, raising my hands in supplication. “We can work on it.” Still with my heart trying out for a 5k, I pick up a pen out of habit and meet his eyes again, waiting for the reason he came.

He doesn’t make me wait. Reaching into his jacket pocket, Jesse gets a different expression on his face, grabbing hold of something he brought. “Lucky your guy didn’t search me this time, huh?” 

He leans forward and parks his elbows on the desk across from me, pulling out whatever it is and dangling it between his fingers. His smile widens when I catch sight of it.

"Yeeeah, man," Jesse says, "Thought we could do it in your chair." 

I blink at him, feeling myself blush like a little schoolgirl and taking the condoms from him like he shouldn’t be waving those around. “Are you  _insane?”_

Jesse - the eternal asshole - pushes himself upright and sits down on the far side of the desk, twisting himself around to lean closer to me. “Are you?”

He’s much higher up than me from this angle, all red lips and fluttering eyelashes, but I really don’t want to move back from the desk because then he’ll see that it’s goddamn working.

Too late. Jesse glances down, then back up at me. “Oh. What’s that?”

"Involuntary," I tell him, scooting further under the desk.

He lifts a knee and looms closer, and I can feel my reservations wilting like the pathetic last line of defence they are. “Fran’ll hear us.”

"Mm?" Jesse dips lower and presses his lips to my jaw. "You like people listening?"

"And my clients," I say into his mouth, caught up in his lips against mine. "I’ll be late."

"And they’ll all know why," Jesse says, getting a hand around the knot of my tie to loosen it. "Saul Goodman can’t take your case at the moment, he’s getting  _fucked.”_

A noise breaks its way out of me and I grab him by the arms, pulling him forward. Jesse complies and sprawls across my desk, knocking papers and pens to the floor. I don’t care at all.

"What about the desk?" I murmur against him, standing up in order to take off my pants while he holds onto my shoulders. "You wanna christen it?"

"Nah, the chair," Jesse breathes into my mouth. "Been thinking ‘bout it."

I pull his waist forward and get stuck into unbuckling his pants. “Alright, kiddo. Have it your way.”

I’ve had a lot of clients get me off in this chair, for payment or pleasure, but none really compare to Jesse - the guy shrugging off his pants and straddling my lap with a grin that just won’t quit.

For a start, I’ve never gone the whole way here. In my office, maybe, once or twice, but not in my goddamn chair. Pinkman is very eager to change that, though, and I have no reason to stop him.

He’s small, so we fit: him on his knees, pressed up tightly against me to get this position to work, and my hands wrapped around his ribs. At some point I turn him around and he loses his shirt and it’s even better that way, with his neck right next to my mouth and my hands on his hips.

I’ve found that for someone with such an eagerness for getting off, the kid is remarkably good at edging. So I don’t let him finish facing away, even with the sharp little noises breaking out of him.

"No you don’t," I murmur, as he starts to tense up. "Not on my desk."

"Killjoy," Jesse says, as I get my hands around his waist and lift him off, with only the slightest bit of help from him. He whimpers when I push back into him, fingers holding onto the sleeves of my shoulders like he is anything but as in control as he thinks he is.

It’s really something, and he gets me close so fast that he’s really not kidding around. One day I’m gonna have to set some serious boundaries about where he can or cannot ambush me.

But for now… I bite that soft part where his neck meets his shoulder and inch him closer, my hand encircling the head of his cock and stroking it over and over again. “You wanna come on my clothes?”

"Mmmh," he breathes, and bucks forward, trying for a better angle.

I oblige, pressing his back to get him closer, listening to how his heart-rate increases and his breathing quickens next to my ear. He’s almost there, and so am I - almost beyond there - until at last he isn’t waiting anymore and curves over, grabbing my shoulders and moaning quietly into my ear: “Ohh, Mr  _White.”_

He comes hot onto my belly, and in the same instant I go cold, tense and confused with shock, but in the next second my survival instinct kicks in and I force myself to relax, my hand still pressed solidly against his back.

Jesse holds onto me like he’s suddenly walked into traffic, realising what just came out of his mouth. I know he’s about to turn and look at me, and I know just as well that once he sees what that phrase has done, he’s gonna be walking out of that door quicker than you can say olé.

I’m a fast thinker. It’s in my blood, see.

So, in the moment that he tries to say something, I pull my head back from where I’ve had it nestled against his neck, and without looking in his eyes, I kiss him. I kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him until he forgets. I try to kiss him until  _I_  forget.

My dick gives some sort of low, abysmal throb inside of him, and I fucking welcome it. Anything to cover myself, to make it seem like no big a deal. Middle man, right? I’d be laughing if I could get away with it.

I kiss his mouth until I have my hands around his face, until I stand us up and lay him out over my desk, until I’m thrusting shallowly into him hoping to god the condom doesn’t fall off.

He lets me do it. I’d say I was surprised, but there’s not much more the kid can do to surprise me. Not like that, anyway. Not something else I can’t prepare for.

I didn’t come before, but I do then, with Jesse splayed out over papers more important than either of us, creasing them and the line between his brows both at the exact same time.

He doesn’t say anything when I pull out and head over to the wastepaper basket, tying the rubber off and dropping it in with the trash. I just get the feeling that he’s watching me. Assessing my reaction, trying to figure out where I stand.

I find my pants and underwear while he’s thinking, pulling them on, and yet, by the time I’m stood there almost clothed he’s still propping himself up on his elbows looking totally lost for words. I would be proud of myself if it wasn’t so completely wrong.

"Kid," I say, looking up at last and pushing the hair out of my eyes. It’s time, for once in my life, to be an immensely better man. "You know I love you on my desk, but I gotta work on there later."

He instantly hops off. “Sorry. Yeah.” Instead of finding a reply, he spends his time looking for his clothes, leaving me to take up the watching.

I shake my head and take a few steps forward, touching him on the shoulder. “Hey, listen.”

Jesse twists around like I’m going to hit him, then straightens up cautiously. Jeez, what hasn’t this kid seen? 

"I’m not going to hurt you," I say on reflex, stepping back just a little to give him space. For the first time since the liquid lead started pouring into my gut, I consider that this might be something really fucked up. "Look- don’t worry about it, okay? It’s no big deal."

He looks like he wants to refute me, but doesn’t have the words. That’s okay. I know shit would be bananas in any other situation.

"You’re you and I’m me, right? We’re different." I watch him, trying to gauge his response. Stepping on any toes is the opposite of what I want to do right now. "Everything has fantasies, kid."

"I guess," he says, morosely, perching on the edge of the desk to pull on his jeans and tilt his face away from me. 

"I’m just saying," I say, moving just a bit closer. "You don’t have to worry about sharing any of them when you’re with me, alright?"

"Mm," Jesse says, and his eyes catch sight of the wet patch on my shirt, before his cheeks flame red and he looks very deliberately away.

That’s better. Some sort of emotion. I reach over and pat his shoulder, my hand lingering just a bit longer than usual, before I let it fall and he gets up, heading out around the desk.

He won’t leave without my permission, and that’s kind of sweet, but it might even be useful in this kind of situation. When he looks up at me in the middle of the room, I nod and gesture to the door, following him over to it. 

Again, he turns right as he reaches it, trying and failing once more to say something, but I let him off the hook by lifting my hand to his chin and gently tilting it up, running my fingers down the length of his throat as he kisses me. Jesse shivers, and I shut my eyes very tightly, trying not to let the heat in my throat build up and up and up.

"Don’t be a stranger, Jesse," I murmur as we pull back, and his eyes flash to mine, before he turns the handle of the door and lets himself out.

-

As soon as he leaves, I shut the door and lean back against it. I’ve actually managed to do it, I really have, I’ve managed to fool myself this was for real. What an accomplishment. Award me the Oscar now, academy.

I go to push myself forward, but my body’s apparently not ready for that yet, and instead I sag back against the door, feeling the wooden grooves grind down against my spine. Okay. Okay, so guess what: this is not what you expected. And yes, you can still deal with this.

You can deal with anything - isn’t that what you’re good at? Keeping a straight face, a breezy smile, a dollar in one hand and an answer in the other, right? That’s you. That’s Saul W. Goodman (terms apply). 

I shove myself away from the door and move across the room, heading towards our mess. There’s documents scattered across the floor that I pile into my hands - folders and files and pens. My two-bit laptop is sitting perilously close to the edge, so I move that back to the middle too. It all has to look presentable. I can’t have a new client coming in here with it looking like a brothel just hosted a hen night.

I’m looking under my desk just in case either of us happened to fall down by my feet when I wasn’t looking, and that’s when I see it: a phone. Not mine, not any I keep in the drawer, no - it’s Jesse’s.

Must’ve fallen out of his pocket at some point in the whole proceedings. He forgot it. No big deal, I’ll give it back to him.

But right now… it’s just me and a whole load of questions, and maybe the key to some of the answers sitting right here in my hand.

I back up on the floor and find my chair, forcing my knees to cooperate just so I can sink back into it. The phone lies innocently in my hand, just daring me to give it a try.

Trying not to pay too much attention to a fleeting moment of morality (or breathe in the smell of the last person in this room), I move my thumb to the OK button in the middle of the keypad and press it.

_Password?_

I don’t even know his birthday, let alone any of his family’s. Kicking myself internally, I throw the phone across the desk and press my hand hard over my eyes. Dammit guy, what have you got yourself into?

It’s only when the pads of my fingers start to feel uncomfortably wet that I pinch them inward, trying to stop the inevitable tide of unwarranted emotions, but naturally that only pushes water out onto my face instead, running in little trails down the corners of my sideburns like they’re trying to escape.

I sit there maybe five, ten minutes, refusing to open my eyes or let go. My breathing inches into rough, with large gaps in between, and my throat feels more stuck together than ever. I don’t know what to think. I don’t want to think of anything really - every time I get the slightest memory of the past hour in my head, it gets worse.

There’s just one voice that keeps on going round and round - a selfish, pathetic one, that tells me that - oh yeah - there’s  _nothing left._ It’s probably  _my_  voice. I spend time mentally exhausting myself by arguing how ridiculous that is - that this has only been going on for a couple weeks, that he’s a child anyway, so I should have expected some huge fuck-up like this. That I should just fucking deal with it, because it isn’t going to go away, and remember - aren’t you supposed to be the real adult here?

A harsh click startles my eyes open and my heart leaps, thinking stupidly that it might be the door opening again, but of course it’s not, it’s the handset on my desk. A crackly voice follows the buzz.

"You want the next client in any time today?"

I blink once or twice, trying to clear my vision, before wiping underneath my eyes and reaching for the button to talk back. “No.” I press my lips together for a second, then clear my throat and re-push the button. “I’m not seeing any more clients today. Send them away. Tell ‘em… there’s been an emergency and I’ve been called out. Grandma’s sick. Okay?”

There’s a pause on the other end, while Francesca makes up her own mind about whatever just went on in here. Then: “Okay.”

The background noise in the office dies away, then filters back momentarily. “You’re paying me for today, though.”

I huff out a laugh, and leave her to it. Well, at least I don’t have to go out there and face the masses right now. Ol’ Saul’s taking some vacation time off to see the pity parade and no one else’s allowed to be there.

She’s something, she is. No tears on her end. The only time I ever saw  _her_  cry was at the end of Return of the King, and after that she wouldn’t let me watch it with her again.

Yeah, I probably missed out that part. Me and Francesca had a thing. For a while, anyway. Pretty casual. Your usual fare - dates and movies, lots of sex. She’d manipulate me into buying her most of Castle Megastore and I’d find ways to get her to share. My suggestion? No pegging after a date at Taco Bell. Worse idea ever.

Either way, that little memory makes it easier on the two of us when she opens the door a short while later. 

She has two cups in her hand and brings them over to where I’m still sitting at my desk, trying and probably failing to hide red eyes by letting my hair hang down across my forehead. I need to get it cut.

"Coffee," Francesca says, setting mine down in front of me, before she looks at me again and pulls up the client chair, sinking down into it like she’s moving in. "You wanna tell me what happened?"

I warm my hands around the cup. “Maybe something stronger?”

Francesca smiles wryly and removes a flask from her pocket, unscrewing the lid and dunking a generous amount of liquid into my cup. “That’s the Saul I know.” A touch goes into her own coffee, too. We’re messes together.

I take a long mouthful of the concoction and cough it down, trying to summarise effectively for her. “I’ve been in over my head.”

She snorts. “More like drowning at the bottom.”

I smile. “Yeah, but today he took it too far.”

She nods at me and crosses one leg over the other, taking a sip. “So, it’s over?”

I run my fingers over the back of my neck, looking out at the walls. “I don’t know. I want it to be; I don’t want it to be.” I’m not brilliant with words at times like these.

Neither of us say anything to that, taking in most of our vodka coffees and wondering how to fix this thing.

"You know what I wish?" I say, setting the mug down on the desk. "I wish I hadn’t been so hard on him."

Francesca looks at me quizzically.

"Before this all started," I clarify. "He was just - some junkie trying to kick a bad habit, and his boss was a psycho, and well, I didn’t care. Just another client, right?"

I clear my throat against my fist. “Yeah, this was what, two weeks? But they’ve been my clients for months. Which is he gonna remember the most?”  _Which am_  I  _going to remember more?_

Francesca raises her drink. “He’s gonna remember your office, that’s for sure.”

I laugh, like I’m supposed to.

She glances at me, then gets up and comes closer, leaning over once she gets to my side of the desk and reaching out to me, just so that she can brush the escaped hair out of my eyes.

"Don’t be too hard on yourself,  _mi gordito,”_  she says, her fingers tucking a stray wisp behind my ear. “He’s a kid. He will forget.”

I sigh, and close my eyes, leaning into her hand. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

She doesn’t leave me when I look presentable, and I realise it’s been ages since I let another person see me like this. I don’t think it’s happened since the last time she caught me broken up and loathing and spent all night stroking my hair and telling me soft things about us.

-

Work was hard. Home is harder.

I didn’t ever take him back here, but he seems to be everywhere anyway, walking in behind me as I open the front door and turn the lights on. Sitting down on my couch. Talk about getting in under your skin.

I pull my shoes off and head straight to the bedroom, splashing water on my face in the ensuite and turning the television on as I walk past. It’s a flatscreen right across from my bed. Has one of those weather apps that tells you what not to wear in the mornings, plus over two hundred channels, and even a musical alarm clock. Today I had it wake me up to John Costello.

It doesn’t feel like much when I park my back against the headboard and splay my legs out over the sheets. There’s nothing on, and soon I turn it off anyway. No point.

I don’t want to go back to thinking, but it creeps in anyway as soon as I cut the lights. I turn over, hoping to dislodge it, but the metallic taste in my throat only intensifies when I realise I’m curled up like I’m really missing something here.

I grab some sheets between my arms and press my face into them, too tired to be angry with myself, too permanently upset to be sad. I haven’t allowed myself to feel anything other than what punches its way to the forefront yet. It’s easier that way. It’s better not to feel at all.

I’m being morbid and depressing and should just go to sleep. I’m a hell of a wreck and an embarrassment to attorneys everywhere. I’m forty-seven years old and in love with a twenty-something boy.

I’m not anything. I’m not. I swear I'm not.


	7. to the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ad coelum  
> Abbreviated from _Cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad infernos,_ which translates to "for whoever owns the soil, it is his all the way up to heaven and down to hell."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies this one took so long. Month-long writer's block is no joke.
> 
> You can think of this chapter as the beginning of Act Two in Saul's fun-filled tryst. I have a fanmix almost ready for upload that covers the whole of Act One. Check back here for a link to listen & download very soon.  
> Oh, and if you have a tumblr and enjoy Breaking Bad spam, [I'm over here.](http://saulsgoodman.tumblr.com)
> 
>  **Warning:** there is what sounds like dub-con towards the end of this one.

_Something like two weeks ago:_

"So when did you know?" Jesse asks, tipping the bottle up to his mouth and smiling at me through the beer.

"Know what? When to stop drinking?"

He shakes his head, tickled. "No, stupid. When you, you know-" He gestures back and forth between us.

I steeple my fingers and lean back against my chair. "When did locker rooms start to be a problem?"

"Yeah."

I scratch my head, thinking about it. "I guess you could say I always knew. Jane May was an early developer, but so was the admirable John Doe on track and field. It wasn't a big deal until I left highschool, anyway."

Jesse nods. He's still looking at the beer like it's something of a crutch.

"You?"

It should startle him I guess, but he only has curiosity in his eyes when he looks back up, thumbing his fingers over his stubble. "Uh, same, I guess."

"You didn't wait this long to try it out, I hope," I say, trying not to let the fear fluttering in my chest come through. Oh kid, please don't let me be your first go at this.

"Oh no." Jesse grins at me, like he knows what I'm thinking. "It's 2013, yo. No one's waiting til college anymore."

"You'd better not be," I say, taking a quick swig of beer. I'm about 99% sure he didn't even go.

He huffs, then peers closer at me. "Are you blushing?"

"No," I say through the froth.

"You  _are_ , man. Oh my god."

I press my thumb and forefinger to my eyes, then give up and let him look. Yeah okay, maybe. "It's the heat."

"Mhm." Jesse's eyes watch me over the rim of his bottle, filled with amusement. "Sure it is."

With that kind of dare, I can't not retaliate. I keep my face free of guilt and take his hand, pulling it towards me. "Check - seriously, this is a major heating issue. I bring it up every time I come here."

Jesse presses the back of his hand to my forehead and gives me a grin wider than the Eastern Seaboard. "I just brought you here, Saul."

I raise my hands. "Guilty as charged. Will Officer Pinkman bring us a fourth round for the road?"

"Dude. The guy with the  _tab_  should be laying down the cash." 

The backs of his fingers slide down over my eyes, making them close on reflex. "Hey! Hey-"

I don't expect him to be tipsy enough to lose motion control, but his index finger catches my bottom lip as he pulls away and I stare at him, betrayed and suspicious, unable to stop my face flaring red again. "Hey, it's my Irish heritage okay, smart guy? Alright,  _alright,_  I'll get the booze."

-

_Now:_

I wake up. I comb my hair. I make myself toast and take it to the car. Today is a day for work, not play.

Traffic’s bad. Always is this time - rush hour. I arrive at 9:21am and Francesca lets me in. She tells me the coffeemaker’s ready, in her own way.

"Machine’s whirring," she says. "Almost like working."

She isn’t so touchy-feely today. I think she knows that would break me.

"I’m heading out to the precinct in an hour or so," I say, as I move through the lobby. "Got a few old timers been looking at me sideways."

Francesca grunts. Her distaste for this office is easy to translate.

"Wanna be in the commercials?" I say as I head past her into my room, setting up my briefcase on the desk. "I could get Gabe to dress you up in a cowgirl outfit. Give you your own catchphrase."

"So I could come to jail with you?" She snorts from the lobby. "Please."

"I’m sure you’ve never been," I say, smiling a little as I flick open the clasp. I have my back to the door from here, but I hear her going back to her desk and flopping down into the chair. It’s like twelve hours sleep isn’t enough for an exhausting day pushing papers, and I’m about to turn around to crack a joke about that when I hear - in quick succession - the quiet tinkle of the main door opening and then a wooden thud.

I twist where I stand and catch a glimpse of the scene before me. 

Francesca Flores is relaxing on her wheely-chair with a… with a  _shotgun_ propped up on her desk, pointing straight at whoever just came in the door.

"Take one more step forward, pal, and you'll be crawling out."

I hurry forward. “Woah! Uh- woah! This is not how we treat our clients-“ 

I get to the office door and catch my first glimpse of the intruder, and every word of bullshit stuffing up my throat immediately vanishes. 

In the corner of my eyeline, Francesca looks at me, then back at the guy, satisfied. “So. Vámonos. Unless I need to call your boss to come pick you up.”

Jesse looks back at me, helpless, but when I say nothing in return, he slinks back and leaves, scooting across the parking lot like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Francesca just sits there, and only then do I notice she’s smoking to complete the image, the cigarette drizzling ash next to the gun lying innocently in front of her.

The sound of Jesse’s car starts up outside, and she turns slowly to me. “That puta was following you like a hound in heat. Keep your eyes open.”

"Who says he’s out to get me?" I say, stalking over to her with my voice lowered for some reason. "He’s not the one hiding a  _shotgun_  in the office.”

She looks slightly admonished, but her eyes are steely. “You said this wouldn’t be another Lalo. I’m making sure.”

"That’s _ridiculous._ " I turn and grab my coat from the rack, striding back into my room to get my briefcase.

Her chair makes a screeching noise behind me. “Where are you going?”

"What are you, my mother?" I tap my briefcase as I come back into the lobby, heading past. "Duty calls especially early this morning. Have a nice day."

I can’t say I’m proud to have walked out like a moody teenager, but I’m pissed. I can’t tell you whether it’s the shit-and-mix reaction I had at seeing the kid so soon again or the extra-strong will of my employee. Probably both.

The morning passes by in a breeze. It’s early afternoon by the time I have important appointments, and I drive back into ABQ’s center half-expecting to be greeted by a gun-barrel.

No such luck. Francesca only meets my eyes as I come in the door before going back to her magazine. I invite the next customer in with me just to break with tradition and from then on I’m blessed with my own company (with the obligatory dirtbag plus-one).

It takes until mid-afternoon for something else to happen. I’m almost expecting it by now. A day is not complete without an interruption from the Heisenboys. 

My desk phone rings and I pick it up, twirling the cord between my fingers. “Who’s next? Capillo?”

"Surprise," answers my secretary, in her trademark drawl. "Your favourite."

I slam the phone down and get out of my chair, confidence evaporating. There’s a slight commotion going on at the door, and I straighten my suit just to give myself a few seconds reprieve. Finally, I open it.

Or rather, I open the first barrier. Huell is standing immovable between me and Walt in the doorway, arms folded across his chest.

"Finally," Walt says, visibly steaming as he eyes me over Huell’s shoulder. "I was beginning to think this was deliberate."

"I ain’t lettin’ you in," Huell says, true to his word.

I insinuate myself into the situation before he can say why, pressing my hand onto Huell’s shoulder and letting him know it’s high time he skedaddled. “Sorry about him. He’s eager for a promotion, you know the type. Come in, come in.”

Huell steps reluctantly to one side, and lets his charge into my room. I’m about to give him a Meaningful glance when a second person catches my eye.

Hidden behind the mix of bodies, he’d gone unnoticed. Out in the open, though, with Heisenberg through the door and Huell moderately less riled up, he’s all too visible.

Jesse looks like he’s about to crap his pants, and keeps darting nervous glances in Francesca’s direction - I look her way, and thankfully she doesn’t have the gun out again. Her expression says that it’s only for the sake of business, though, so I hustle Pinkman out of her way.

"Come on, kid," I say, and when he scuttles nervously past, I close the door.

The room seems all too small with the both of them in here. I wonder faintly when was the last time this occurred, before it all blew up in my face.

"How can I help you gentlemen?" I ask, as I breeze back to my desk. Stay at first base, Saul, you’ll get through this.

"It's Skyler," Walt says, and I raise my eyebrows.

"Oh, so no Mike this time? Change of pace."

It’s about this time that I notice Jesse’s face, as he cringes back into the chair he’s sitting in next to Walt’s. I can read it like a book. He’s practically beaming words at me, Spock-style.  _Don’t tell him what I said, don’t tell him about it, don’t let on._

It’s irritating.

I look away from him, back to Walt, who seems to have been waiting for me to get over my little moment before going back to business. “No. My wife has had the… brilliant idea of buying a  _second_  car wash. We’re supposedly making ‘too much money’ to launder through A1A alone.”

Walt raises his hands where he’s sitting, palms open, the way he does when a petty issue seems way below him. “I’m not sure when she became an expert criminal accountant, but that’s neither here nor there.  _Is_ there a problem, here?”

"There's trouble in paradise, but unless you want to sue her..." I avoid glancing at Jesse. "I gotta say, it’s not a half bad idea. Looks legitimate, and with two businesses raking in the green, you might get through your fraudulent earnings before 2085." 

He’s eyeing me like I’m very far from the real picture here, and I chew the side of my mouth. “That much, huh?”

I think for a moment, then step back. “My suggestion? Bury it in the ground. Find a place with high security, mark it with a little x on your day planner and pay top dollar. Never knock good storage, as I say to every man who comes in here with something to hide.”

I give him a wink, then think better of it, busying myself with rearranging the papers on my desk. “Well. Some secrets are bigger than others.” I offer him a smile that's more like a grimace.

There’s a card poking out from the lefthand draw, and I grab it quickly. “Here. Guy’s name is Rondo. Likes payment upfront, dislikes questions. Tell him I sent you.”

Walt stands and takes the card, giving me an assessing look before dismissing my aid, and heading back towards the door. “Jesse. Come on.”

Pinkman is still crumpled up in his chair, caught between staring at the floor and at anywhere other than me. His eyes fly to me _then,_ though, and he leaps up as if he just brushed a live wire. Finding nothing to help him in my face, he follows Walt’s path back out with his shoulders slumped in that very readable silence.

"Hey. Kid."

He almost jumps out of his skin when he notices I came after him, and visibly shrinks beneath the expression on my face.

"Don’t drop this in my office again." I hand over the phone he left behind, but when he tries to slink out with it, my grip becomes noticeably tighter on his arm.

"I sent you a text," I say. "It’s important. And never from Saul, alright?" Walt’s through the lobby now; I can see him heading out across the lot.

Jesse nods, a quick up and down motion.

"Now go. Get a hold of yourself. You’re with him now."

He scarpers out of there like the dogs are after him. That’s better.

Francesca glances at me while I stand in the doorway, like she’s glad I have a little of my sanity back.

"Well," I say, and dust off my hands. "What do you have for me next?"

It takes him longer than I thought to send me a message. The text buzzes in quietly in my pocket, and after all that fuss it only says: “We still on?” 

I’m between clients, so I have the time to take it out and think about it. I start typing in  _Yes_ , but change my mind, and instead say:  _Why don’t you come over to my house tonight?_

He gets back to me straight away, so I text him my address with strict instructions to delete that text once he knows where it is, and leave him to the rest of his afternoon. This should be interesting.

-

It strikes me sometime when I’m pacing anxiously from the kitchen counter to the living room and back that I have no idea  _why_ the kid said Walt’s name, let alone anything other than that: he said it.

Was that one of Walt’s past misdeeds? Did he blackmail Jesse into doing it, like he seems so fond of doing? Or was it something that just happened because they spent so much time in each other’s company? It’s not like I have much of a leg to stand on there, after Francesca.

I guess - me, in my disheveled clothes with my law degree and my fake potted plants - I want to know if it was something Jesse  _liked._  Like, I don’t want to consider the implications or jump to any conclusions here, but that’s something I feel I gotta know before we proceed with any of this. Like I told him, we’re still on - with apologies to my longterm health insurance. We’re on shaky fucking ground, but I just.

I can’t leave it like that. In the middle of misunderstandings and silence; it just seems too wrong.

When I hear him knock, I abandon all sense that I know what I’m doing and open the door.

Jesse’s stood in the porch light looking out of place and awkward. It’s too bright, like a spotlight’s trained on him, and he’s small in the center of it.

"Hi," I say, and "Hey," he says.

The living room yawns behind me like a great big monster I didn’t know I wasn’t ready to show him, and I let the door swing for a second before speaking again, leaning gently on the frame and blocking his way. “You wanna go see a movie?”

Jesse perks up and looks almost delighted for a moment, before it vanishes behind wariness again. “What?”

"A movie," I say, my open collar picking up the evening chill in the air. "You know: big screen, popcorn, slushies."

Jesse stares at me, then breaks out of being still and starts nodding, palming his pockets to find his wallet. He glances up guiltily when his search turns up nothing. “I… didn’t bring any money. Sorry. I didn’t know we were…”

I push myself back upright. “S’okay. It’s on me.” We stand there quietly for a second, before Jesse raises a hand and kind of points behind himself.

"You wanna go then?"

"Yeah," I say, and try to take my eyes off him. "Yeah. One sec."

I lean back into the hall just long enough to grab my keys, before stepping out onto the porch step and locking the door. With my luck, I’ll have forgotten something important, like my head. And, because of my luck, I don’t give it a single thought.

Jesse is looking at me strangely over the roof of my car. I know kid, I know I didn’t invite you in. Middle-age can be a strange time.

I get in, backing out of the driveway and avoiding Jesse’s car as I reverse past the curb. The radio turns on automatically, voices just above a murmur on some pointless topic we can barely hear.

"So," I say, spinning the wheel back around. "Anything out right now you wanna see?"

"Uh." Jesse looks totally stumped for a moment, before he reconnects his brain. " _Oh,_  uh, there’s this movie about like… robots. Uh, Pacific Rim. It came out like a month ago.”

"That’s okay," I say, watching the road. "I know a place they still show hits from the eighties. They’ll have it."

Jesse’s quiet then, and when I glance over I see the corners of his mouth have curved up into a little smile. He’s in a sweater he used to wear, though it’s not as big as some of the ones he owns. It looks warm as hell though, and he’s curled up into it like some contented cat.

"Hey, uh." I dig in my jacket pocket, pulling out a flip phone that’s seen better days. "I use a burner to talk to you now. That’s what that was all about. Can’t have my name showing up on your phone every hour of the day, right?"

"Right," he says, and if I didn’t know better I’d say he sounded embarrassed.

"I’m not in there as Saul?"

"No," he says, defensively, "You’re like, I dunno, some generic name."

"Good." With a different number and a random name, a slip-up is less likely to happen. This way, if anyone else ever gets their hands on it, they won’t find much in the way of incriminating evidence. "Law-breaking 101, kid. Minimize risk."

"I know."

"Yeah, you know."

We pull into the theatre complex, just another metal dot in the parking lot. I like this place. Never too many people here. The families show up in droves for the early viewings and then the whole of Albuquerque seems to forget it exists. My kinda place.

Jesse sticks with me as we head across the lot, his shadow striding out in front of mine. It makes me nervous for reasons I can’t quite explain.

"There’s uh," I start to say as we go through the doors, "A ticket booth right here. Less hassle than the front desk."

"Okay," Jesse says, again with that expression like he thinks I’m acting weird. Sure am, kiddo. Think about it.

I enter my card details with the guy looking over my shoulder like he’s never heard of tact, pick the film and find out there’s almost no one else booked to attend. Great, or terrifying, whichever way you want to look at it.

Jesse collects the tickets the machine spits out and heads onward, sparing a brief, longing glance towards the snack stand, before he stands at the exit waiting for my approach like an eager puppy. Okay, okay, coming. 

I pick up a slushie on my way there, just for kicks. There’s no way I can touch anything sweet right now, but Jesse’s eyes light up when he sees it. It’s some ridiculous red and blue combo and it’s freezing in my hand. 

I give it to him when we pass the ticket-taker, and it stops him from talking as I find us the right screen and squint at the seat numbers. Middle of the row, right at the back.

"Come on, kid," I say, and reach back and take his sleeve, leading him into the room and letting it go as we head up the stairs. The commercials have already started - do they ever stop? - so it’s darker than usual, and the eyes of the few other patrons in the theatre are the only things visible.

I let him go ahead of me across the row, until we’re both seated and some part of me can relax. And then I’m taking off my jacket to hang over the seat back in front of me, and he’s setting his drink down, and in that moment we’re both too close. It’s too dark, it’s too quiet, and I didn’t think this through when I shooed him away from my front door. If I thought letting him into my house would suck, this is like we leapt straight to the bedroom.

My heart jackhammers around my chest and I force myself to fold the damn jacket over the chair in front and sit back down. I try to ignore Jesse’s presence next to me, and the armrest between us; his arm and my arm neither one sure who should take it. This is like highschool all over again.

The film starts. Finally. There’s plot and huge creatures for Jesse to get involved with, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that he really does. When I glance over minutes later, still hot in the face and full of worry, his eyes are fixed on the screen.

He doesn’t notice me looking at him, leaning forward like that. He has his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together, and the line of his body says he’s been looking forward to seeing this movie much more than he let on.

I tentatively take the armrest and rest my chin on my palm, alternating between watching the action and watching him. They’re both in my eye-line, so I have an excuse if it comes to that, but I still have so much to think about and I’ve never had a chance to do that with the subject of my thoughts sitting right there in front of me.

I don’t realise my eyes have slipped closed until I wake to a hand nudging my upper arm, still with the film going on in the background.

"Hey," a small voice says, and I know it’s Jesse before I open my eyes. Oh, that’s humiliating. "Hey, Saul."

He isn’t on the edge of his seat anymore, so we must be some way through it, and a trickle of guilt makes it way down to join the rest of the lake I've got going on. He doesn’t look annoyed, though, just concerned. Maybe even a little upset. “You okay?”

I rouse myself, noticing that. “Yeah.” I raise my head and let my arm fall down, flinching when it rests on the chill of the slushie’s cup lid.”Yeah, I’m fine.”

For once, it’s the truth. I feel… rested. Pretty relaxed, if I’m being honest about it. The kid doesn’t seem to be of the same opinion, though.

Jesse glances away, then looks back at me without meeting my eyes, and I think I can even hear his breathing over the sound of the movie. Wait, what? Did I miss something?

I shuffle myself around in my seat so I’m facing him, and reach over, gently cupping my hand just under his chin. “Hey hey, what’s that about?” I glance at the screen, then back to him. “You wanna leave?”

"No," Jesse says, and tries to pull away, but it’s half-hearted.

I move my hand away from his chin instead, so it’s less grabby, until it’s resting against the side of his face. Jesse’s eyes keep flicking up to mine, then away, then up and away again. Every bit of relaxation I felt is crushing itself up, in giant fists as big as the kaiju's.

Conflicted, I press my lips together and pull my hand away, fingers pressing hard into my palm. I don’t know what the problem is; I don’t know how to fix it. Part of me isn’t even sure that it’s any of my business.

We face back towards the movie, and absolutely none of it even enters my awareness. It’s a big hunk of nothing on a piece of cloth compared to the rest of the universe.

But I am so focused on trying to work out why, and who, and what, that I almost leap out of my chair when I feel a hand on the limb I have sitting on the armrest. With a whole planet in my throat, I look at Jesse, and see him ostensibly watching the film, but his hand is still resting on mine, and when I glance away I feel his fingers wriggle forward.

Parting my knuckles is the easiest thing I’ve done that night, and his fingers insinuate themselves between mine like they were always trying to be there. I try, I really try to ignore it and stop looking, but I can’t. I’m so bewildered by what’s going on, by whether I’ve done something awful, or whether that was only Jesse, that I can’t stop staring at this tenuous link between us. It makes no sense. Maybe that’s for the best.

Instead, I just let it sit, and finally I can think. He’s upset, but he wants me. He might be just fantasizing about ol’ Einstein, but I still want him. There’s no real way this can work. Not really. Not in any excusable sense.

But there is… one way it could. It involves something I don’t spend a lot of time on, personally: self-sacrifice. Something like that. All "if I can have you as not-me, then can I have you?” Philosophical bullshit. Lot of words.

His hand feels warm on mine, and he cleans up well for a junkie. Good points. Bad points: you’re not the meth cook he’s looking for. Super bad: he wants you anyway.

Yeah, there’s really only one way in the end. One way I can keep this charade and have some kind of say. The only way that kills me more than leaving this altogether.

If I want him, I have to deal with it. I have to know exactly what he's looking for and be it. I have to take the most unbelievable, insane route in the book.

And the worst part is, I think I can do it.

I roll my hand over on the armrest, and wait for Jesse to readjust his fingers, until they slide into mine and solidify. I get it now. I think I know why he was upset. I know what I have to do.

We go back to my place, after, and I don’t kiss him at the door. I let him in without hesitation. I drop my keys in the hall.

He reads my walls like they’re talking to him, with all the fancy tech, the irish memorabilia, and the flatscreen in my room. The joke-mug by my bed. The underwear I was wearing yesterday.

I press him down onto the sheets, and kiss the back of his neck. I run my hands over the fuzz of his hair, over his shoulder-blades and the sides of his ribs. I bite his shoulders when I push in, and his exhale is a blessing.

My fingers dig into his skin and I tell him - face-down, side on, against my pillow -  _"Do it."_  and every time I say it I thrust, pushing into him. “Say it.” Say who you’re thinking about. Say who you really want me to be. _Say my name._

I hear him whisper it before he truly says it, steady in my hands, and I buck in as a reward. “Again.”

"-white?"

"Go on," I growl, but by then he’s off, he’s going, he’s gone, and his breaths tumble out of him like the breeze. His skin is warmer to the touch, his face all red, his fingers clenching and unclenching.

I don’t need him to say it anymore, because all the rest is noise. I pin him down by his shoulders and ride it out, struggling to stay hard (though it’s not much of a struggle anymore), and trying to find a place I can live like this.

It seems to go on forever, although really Jesse comes within a matter of minutes. He writhes beneath me, and I realise he’s been rubbing himself against the sheets too, making all that mess. In the instant my own body blinds me behind my eyes, I forget everything but the sight, and that’s all that allows me to be there.

He exhales, and curls up on the bed beneath me. I’m on my side next to him, arm over him, other arm thrown beneath the pillow.

He doesn’t seem to be able to say anything at all, and that’s okay. He can speak when he wants to. Who knows, at least one of us might have something to say.

I kiss his shoulders where my thumbs put indents, and he shivers.

-

"What the hell was that?" he says, quietly, after a minute or a half-hour has passed.

My fingers are stroking small circles around his upper arm, far above the whiplash black of the scorpion tattoo. I catch my breath, not knowing it needed to be caught, then swallow to be able to speak more clearly.

"Kid," I say, and then with the slightest pressure on his arm he’s turning towards me. His eyes are so blue, the way they were the first time I really saw them.

In the face of those, I shake my head a little, and my voice comes out like ash. “I wouldn’t ask.”

Jesse seems to take that as some kind of answer, and doesn’t push it, curling back over onto his side inside my arms. It seems like he could be sad again, or maybe that’s me projecting and really he’s feeling just fine.

Then, he asks, as if from far away, “Why do you call me kid?”

I bite my teeth together and blink my eyes. “Why, d’you prefer I call you something else?”

Jesse’s shoulders raise, then lower. “Just curious.”

I turn my head to wipe my eyes against the pillow, then turn back to the back of his head. “Ah, I don’t know. I guess it’s somewhere in between. You’re not  _a_  kid, or we’d be in real trouble. And,” I breathe out. “You’re younger than me, so it would be weird if I called you old man, right?”

My thumb brushes across his arm again, resuming the circles. “I’ll stop calling you it if you don’t like it.”

Jesse makes a noise into the pillow. Sounds like  _nuh._

"Whatever man," he says next, mouth opening wide in a yawn. "I don’t mind."

I breathe in, then lean forward and press my lips just above the dark skull on his back. Like addicts to a pharmacist, we are.

He’s smaller when he’s asleep, less pointy and warm. I let him rest, leaning backwards to turn out the light. There. Sleep, Jesse.

Last night, I’ll admit, this bed was hell. Tonight is a different kind, thanks to just one thing: I’ve solved this crisis myself.

It turned out the whole world was already aligned in place already, that everything I needed to change was right here. That really, the only variable was me.

The rest is noise, New Mexico thunder and dreams.


End file.
